Nirmala Devi remanded in judicial custody

Nirmala Devi was suspended and later arrested on Monday after a phone conversation in which she allegedly lured the students of a private college in Aruppukottai to extend certain favours for higher officials got leaked. The college management had filed a complaint with the Aruppukottai Town Police station.  

The investigation, which commenced on Monday late evening, went on till Tuesday evening, for close to 23 hours. Virudhunagar SP Rajarajan visited the station on Monday midnight and questioned the professor for two hours. 

Though Nirmala confessed that it was her voice in the audio, she had concealed the identity of others reportedly involved. But she gave two names, Karuppasamy and Murugan — working at Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), later during the interrogation. 

The duo had acted as brokers for her and they had promised to make her the Vice-Chancellor with the help of political contacts if she helped the officials. Following the interrogation, Nirmala was summoned by Virudhunagar Judicial Magistrate Mumtaj and was remanded on Tuesday. 

She was then taken to Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai for medical examination and was later lodged in Madurai Central Prison. As the case was transferred to CB-CID, they might take her into their custody, police sources said. 

Meanwhile, students and a section of faculties of MKU staged a protest in front of the campus. They held placards and raised slogans demanding to form a committee monitored by Supreme Court. 

They said they don’t trust the five-member committee formed by MKU and so the committee should be dismantled. Instead, the Supreme Court should take up the case and should form a new committee to investigate the case, said the protesters.