Deceased dairy manager’s hands found tied, admit Chennai police; but rule out foul play

CHENNAI: Following the death of a chartered accountant who works as the treasury manager of the company that owns Thirumala Milk Products Private Limited, allegedly by suicide, the Greater Chennai Police have sent Madhavaram crime inspector Vijay Prabhakar to the vacancy reserve (VR) for allegedly mishandling the case, a police source said.

The company officials had lodged a complaint with the Kolathur Deputy Commissioner (DC) Pandiyarajan against Naveen Bollineni (38), which was forwarded to the Madhavaram police. Based on an internal inquiry, it was found that inspector Vijay Prabhakar allegedly mishandled the case, which resulted in his transfer to VR without any post, noted an official.

Addressing the speculation around Naveen’s death, a senior police officer said there were several social media posts alleging that Naveen’s body was found with his hands tied. “His hands were found tied, but not very tightly, which suggests that he himself had tied them. Also, there have been several instances where suicide victims tie their own hands before killing self. There seems to be no foul play involved,” claimed an official.

Naveen allegedly died by suicide on Wednesday inside a hut on a piece of land he owned in Puzhal. Accused of swindling Rs 40 crore, he had repaid Rs 5 crore. In the suicide note that he emailed to his sister and company officials, he accused two officials of threatening him with jail despite agreeing to repay the embezzled money.

His sister alerted police, who recovered his body and sent it for postmortem examination. In a statement, the police said Naveen was neither summoned nor questioned, and complaints filed with the CCB on June 24 and Kolathur DC Pandiyarajan on June 25 are pending documents.

Naveen had even filed for anticipatory bail, which got adjourned twice. Joint Commissioner (West) Disha Mittal will probe the allegation linked to DC Pandiyarajan.