Overview
- Police arrested a TNPDCL contract worker, Gopinath, and a Bengaluru shop owner, Murali Manohar, after tracking and recovering 34 hard disks reported missing from the power-distribution headquarters.
- Investigators forensically restored erased files from the recovered drives and say the data show no prima facie incriminating material so far.
- DGP Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal ordered the case moved from Chintadripet police to the Crime Branch–CID to handle the sensitive nature of utility records and to expand the probe.
- TNPDCL and TANGEDCO have opened internal inquiries and announced imminent security changes including biometric access controls and tighter rules on contractor access to data centres on holidays.
- Opposition leaders are demanding a CBI inquiry and the theft is being viewed in the context of a separate CBI case into TANGEDCO transformer tenders and alleged losses to the exchequer.