By NewsGram Staff Writer

Chennai: The multi-crore granite mining scam that rocked Tamil Nadu has now transfigured into a gory turn of events, involving the complicity of the top echelons of the private industry.

Corroborating the rampant incidence of human sacrifices, a complaint filed by M Sevarkodiyan, former driver of the PRP Granites in Madurai accused P.R Palanichamy, the mining baron and owner of the country's largest granite exporter for allegedly engaging in controversial human sacrifices in Tamil Nadu's granite quarries.

According to a report filed by M Sevarkodiyan in the Madras High Court, in 1999, he was given an unusual task by the company to pick up mentally ill people from street, feed them, and later drop them in the company's headquarters.

He further added that demented people were killed and buried by the associates of P R Palanichamy. Further, he claimed to have witnessed the burial of two such persons an year before. In 2004, a year after he resigned PRP Granites, Sevarkodiyan reported the matter to the police,

"The PRP head office was in Keelavalavu near Madhurai and they had quarries in other districts. Whenever we made an inspection trip, we were asked to pick up mentally ill people on the way. We didn't have to force them to get into the vehicle. We simply had to hold their hands, and they would step inside the Jeep or Sumo," Sevarkodiyan told The Indian Express.

Madras High Court has appointed a committee in order to probe into the case. After digging the quarry last weekend, skeletal remains of four people, including a child were found.

On 15th September, P R Palanichamy's associates were questioned by the police. A tantrik from Kerala who allegedly led the human sacrifices is also being investigated.