The Crime Branch– CID sleuths arrested three persons including a retired police sub-inspector on charges of creating a false insurance claim citing an industrial accident as road accident.
Following complaints of false insurance claims, the Madras High Court directed the CB-CID to take up further investigation in more than 1,000 cases of false insurance claim registered by various district and city crime branch police across the State.
Accordingly, the Additional Director-General of Police, Archana Ramasundaram and Inspector-General of Police, M.N. Manjunatha constituted special teams to investigate these cases. In the course of investigation, in one case, the teams found that an industrial accident was cited as road accident and an insurance claim was made in this regard. On January 22, 2000, Saravanan son of Jothi Ramalingam of Bharathi Nagar in Tirupur sustained a cut injury on his right thumb while working on a machine in a textile unit. Suppressing the information, K. Ganesan relative of Jothi Ramalingam and his son, Saravanan preferred a complaint with the Tirupur Rural Police. The trio in their complaint stated that Saravana sustained injuries in a road accident caused by a van driven by Jothi Ramalingam.
Natarajan, the then Special Sub-Inspector connived with them and registered a case and a charge sheet was filed against Jothi Ramalingam.
The accused pleaded guilty in the accident case and paid a fine of Rs.1,500. Whereas, the injured Saravanan filed a petition for a fraudulent insurance claim of Rs.5 lakh from United India Insurance Company and the claim is pending disposal.
On Tuesday, CB-CID Inspector, Muthusamy arrested Jothi Ramalingam, Ganesan and the retired SSI, Natarajan and all of them have been remanded.