Two police constables – Melvin (40) and Thangaraj (41) – attached to Nungambakkam police station were shifted to the Vacancy Reserve category following a complaint that they demanded bribes from a jewellery shop owner for not including his shop name in the First Information Report (FIR). According to reports, Crime Inspector Rohini, who was also initially placed in Vacancy Reserve category, has been transferred to Kasturba Gandhi Government Hospital police station at Triplicane in Chennai.
On August 11, Shivakumar (54), a manager of a jewellery showroom located in Thyagaraya Nagar filed a complaint naming the three officers before the office of the Chennai Police Commissioner. In the complaint, he said that on August 10, police personnel Melvin and Thangaraj paid a visit to the showroom and asked the manager to come to the police station for an inquiry in the case related to an arrest of a Nepalese woman who stole gold jewellery. Police told the manager that they seized gold ornaments from the woman and some of them carried the seal of the jewellery shop.
Later, the manager was asked to visit the police station over the phone call. Shivakumar went to the Nungambakkam police station on the same evening where he was allegedly asked to pay Rs 1.5 lakh to the police inspector Rohini and Rs 50,000 each to Thangaraj and Melvin, as bribe, for not naming the jewellery shop in this case. But he refused to pay the bribe and filed a complaint against three of them.
Along with the complaint, he also provided evidence of CCTV footage and recordings of phone calls to Chennai Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal. Later, Shankar Jiwal ordered a probe in which the investigating officers confirmed that police personnel from Nungambakkam station asked for a bribe from the jeweller. Inspector Rohini has refuted the allegations. But the three police personnel were shifted to the Vacancy Reserve category.