00:00Such a massive cover-up, and yet today is when you're actually getting details of this.
00:05In October 2025, when this case had come to the fore, nobody really knew.
00:10This granite baron, Viramani, is extremely influential.
00:14He's a prominent figure in India's granite industry, and his influence extends well beyond the business that he runs.
00:21He's headed major industry bodies, including the Federation of Indian Granite and Stone Industry,
00:26the World Natural Stone Association, academia and business chambers as well,
00:31from VIT University, Anna University, linked initiatives.
00:35He's got links to all of that.
00:37The Indo-Russian, Indo-American Chambers of Commerce, a wide institutional network
00:41spanning industry, government, education and business.
00:45The reason I'm showing you this is to highlight the kind of influence that he wields.
00:49But the biggest questions around the initial police probe,
00:53there's five months where the police took it up and then let it go, let him off.
00:58Police cited gaps in evidence, failure to recover the original footage
01:02and the inability to identify the victim.
01:05By original footage, I'm referring to that pen drive that I mentioned earlier,
01:08which was handed over to the police.
01:10The special POXO court later rejected the report and ordered a fresh investigation.
01:15So essentially, if not for the court, we would have never found out about this case.
01:20So what went wrong?
01:21I want to bring in Pramod Madhu for more details, really,
01:24on what the investigation has thrown up so far.
01:26And Pramod, besides the sordid details that have emerged of what this man did,
01:30of how he committed these crimes,
01:33the bigger question right now is over the cover-up.
01:35And how for five months, the police essentially did supposedly an investigation
01:41and then discarded off this case.
01:44Well, that's the shocking part over here, Rakshita.
01:46In fact, the important aspect is that, like, once we came to know of the case,
01:48this particular issue was not highlighted.
01:50It was just like a one-liner earlier.
01:52But sensibly, like, you know, it was something that cannot be just like that discarded
01:56because imagine a case being investigated for nearly five months
01:59goes to the POXO special court
02:01and the judge is the one who claims, like,
02:03how can you just simply, you know, ask for a closure on this?
02:06You have to go ahead and, you know, investigate it further.
02:09And this is when all these informations come out.
02:11So we started asking these important cases.
02:14On one side, the case definitely is turning into a political issue.
02:16But at the same time, the important aspect is that,
02:18what about the dedicated officers for this, the IT vice part and such?
02:23Why did they not, were not able to get any kind of information?
02:25We have reports of them going ahead and trying to talk to people for the sake.
02:30It looks almost like a kind of an eyewash kind of thing.
02:33But however, after the involvement of the court,
02:35a second investigation, which happens after the regime change,
02:39completely takes a different change.
02:40And now we have a really, really, like a seriously big person,
02:43a politically influential person who has been arrested with two more people.
02:47That's the shocking part.
02:48And for this development alone, it only took 40 days.
02:51Imagine the early investigation was up to 50, sorry, five months.
02:54And this complete investigation has gone ahead.
02:57And this kind of development occurred within 40 days.
02:59That's a bigger question.
03:00And, Dakshita, the same questions that we started asking earlier,
03:03now the law minister has also put forward.
03:05But we also asked the law minister as to what kind of action would be taken against.
03:09Some kind of, like, accountability must be there over the earlier police team which investigated.
03:13And he said that will definitely be investigated as well.
03:15And as we know, a committee will also be soon to be formed by the police itself to go ahead
03:19and find out
03:19whether there were any kind of, like, lapse over that investigation or any delay tactics was there.
03:24However, TBK now clearly straightaway points out at DNK stating that it is because of political influence here, Dakshita.
03:32Okay, so a lot of politics that's also playing out in this particular case.
03:35Can I just highlight, though, Pramod, that the reason, and we must give this shout-out,
03:39the reason we're actually seeing a discourse today about this particular case,
03:44the reason it's in the spotlight today is because of one judge,
03:47the special POXO court judge S. Padma,
03:50who said nothing doing, there will be no closure report in this case.
03:53We must investigate this case.
03:56That's what's led to all of these details emerging.
03:58That's what's led to us being one step closer, at least, towards justice for all of these victims.
04:04If not for her, this case would have been buried.
04:06And the man we're showing on our screens, the monster, the 84-year-old granite baron,
04:10would be enjoying life right now.
04:13So we must recognize the fact that this one judge has set the ball rolling as far as justice goes.
04:19Thanks very much, Pramod, for joining us with those details.
04:21Let me open this up.
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