Santhanam to grill Murugan, Karuppasamy today

Santhanam Committee, appointed by Governor Banwarilal Purohit to investigate the leaked audio tape of Assistant Professor Nirmala Devi from Aruppukottai, commenced its third phase of investigation in Madurai from Thursday last. Earlier, Santhanam said that he had sought permission from prison officials to investigate Murugan and Karuppasamy. Thereafter, Chinniah, Registrar at Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), deposed before the Committee and was grilled for nearly 90 minutes, following which the committee prepared a report. 

Speaking to newspersons, Santhanam said that Chinniah was inquired about the University procedures in allocating the works and the report was prepared based on his replies. The main work of the committee was to document the developments in the investigation. He added that Murugan and Karuppasamy would be investigated in the prison on Thursday and the grilling might get extended till Friday. Meanwhile, Murugan, who was lodged in Madurai central prison, had his bail rejected by Sattur Court on two grounds — the first one was that the petition should have been filed in a sessions court and not in the subCourt and the second because of the objection from the counsel, who appeared for the CB-CID. 

The counsel had argued that in the raid conducted by the CB-CID in Murugan’s house many evidences were collected and if Murugan was released there were chances that Murugan might destroy them. Also, only the first phase of the investigation by the CB-CID with Murugan had been completed and they were yet to investigate him in the second phase.