The fire that initially was considered an accident in the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) office in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, has been conclusively proved to be a murder planned before after an exhaustive police investigation. On December 17, 2025, at about midnight, the corpse of the senior branch manager A. Kalyani Nambi (54) was found unrecognizable due to burning on the second floor of the LIC building on West Veli Street. The first responders did not suspect anything but an unfortunate accident; nevertheless, later questioning produced doubts that led the authorities to conduct a more in depth investigation into the fire and the victim’s last moments.
What Happened here?
A very gruesome and calculated scheme was revealed by the investigators which was planned by the assistant administrative officer D. Ram (46), a co worker of the victim. The police found the bottles made of plastic filled with petrol in the office of Ram along with the equipment used for siphoning the fuel. This evidence led to the conclusion that the fire was purposely set and not due to an electrical fault. Among other things Ram’s main power cutoff was a fake one: he was said to have shut off the power supply to the whole building and then called the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to report a non-existent fault, locked the main entrance with a chain and thus prevented escape. Kalyani’s shouting made Ram believed to have reached her room, pouring petrol over her and igniting her.
Police Investigation Reports
The police say that the reason was the conflict between the two over the insurance claim’s delays in payment. More than one agent has said that Ram was sitting on more than forty pending death claim files and Kalyani had supposedly confronted him and threatened to bring the matter up to the higher authorities, which concealed the attack. After giving various replies during the interrogation, Ram finally admitted the murder and was arrested late on Monday night, although he had also suffered burn injuries. The authorities have also reclassifications the case to include the factors of murder, tampering with evidence, providing false information, and failing to report an offense under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the relevant state laws.
