CHENNAI: The fire raging over the horrifying cases of alleged child sex abuse involving granite baron R Veeramani is spreading to the police as well, with the State government on Thursday placing ADGP A Arun and Coimbatore Commissioner IG N Kannan under compulsory wait for alleged inaction on the complaint filed in 2024, while an assistant commissioner was placed in vacancy reserve.

These officers are likely to be summoned for questioning in connection with the Pocso case registered against Veeramani.

Arun was Chennai police commissioner and Kannan the Additional Commissioner (South) when Tamil Nadu Congress’s SC/ST cell head MP Ranjan Kumar lodged the first complaint in 2024. Kumar claimed he gave the video evidence of the abuse to Kannan along with the complaint, while Kannan told the media that he had informed his superior about it.

“The IPS officers failed to take required action on the first complaint they received from the Congress office bearer, about which the department learnt only now. It was a significant lapse on their part. That is why they were moved to compulsory-wait,” a highly placed source told DT Next.

Compulsory-wait is a bureaucratic purgatory where the officers will not receive salaries, explained an officer.

The State police headquarters also placed assistant commissioner (Koyambedu) MA Yasmin under vacancy reserve. Yasmin, the then assistant commissioner of the anti-vice squad, had filed the closure report in the Pocso court in Chennai in February while investigating the second complaint on which an FIR was registered.

After fresh details emerged, questions have risen about the entrusting the second complaint in 2025 to the anti-vice squad instead of registering the case under Pocso Act and investigated by the special wing.

Meanwhile, facing relentless attacks from ruling TVK over his silence over the alleged cover-up that happened when he was the chief minister, DMK president MK Stalin rejected the allegations that his government protected the accused. Everyone responsible for the alleged offences in the case, including those who aided or attempted to shield the accused, must be brought to justice, he said.