Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi visited Periyar University on Thursday. The police arrested 150 people who took part at a black flag protest against him. The Salem City Police conducted searches at six places at the university, and they lasted for over nine hours.
In view of the Governor’s visit, over 400 police personnel were deployed on the university premises. The Federation of Students Organization-Tamil Nadu (FSOT), consisting of the student wings of the DMK and the MDMK, the Students Federation of India, the All India Students Federation, the Revolutionary Students Front, the Muslim Students Federation, and the Tamil Nadu Students Federation announced the black flag protest. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the university in the morning with black flags and raised slogans against the Governor’s visit. Later, the police arrested 150 members of the FSOT and kept them in a marriage hall. They were freed in the afternoon.
At 9.30 a.m., six special teams of police, led by inspectors Saradha, Paulraj, Selvi, Sivakami, Sivakumar, and Sasikala, started searches at the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) office, the finance office, the Tamil Department office, the Computer Centre, the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) centre, and the planning and development office on the university premises.
Sources said the police interrogated the staff members of the Tamil department and the DDU-GKY centre.
While the searches took place, the Governor reached the university around 12.50 p.m. Vice Chancellor R. Jagannathan welcomed him. Sources said the governor went to the university and had a one-on-one meeting with the Vice-Chancellor for 20 minutes. Thereafter, he had a 10-minute meeting with the heads of all departments and went to the university guesthouse for lunch. Around 2 p.m., he left for Coimbatore by road, the sources added.
University faculty members claimed that they did not know about the Governor’s visit. On Thursday morning, the heads of departments received a message about a meeting with the Governor at 12 p.m., with no details of the agenda. The case against the Vice-Chancellor was expected to come up for hearing at the Madras High Court on Friday. A day earlier, the Governor visited the university and met the Vice-Chancellor, raising several questions, they said.
On December 26, 2023, the Salem Karuppur police registered a case and arrested Mr. Jagannathan for allegedly misappropriating funds and making casteist remarks made against Periyar University Employees Union legal adviser I. Elangovan. In the early hours of December 27, he was released on bail. The same day, he was admitted to a private hospital for cardiac-related issues and discharged on January 4.
