Whistleblower official fears for his life

CHENNAI: The director-in-charge of the distance and continuing education programme at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Dr R Ramesh, on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the Tirunelveli police commissioner, stating that he had been receiving threat calls during night hours for exposing a B.Ed admission scam.After assuming office in July, Ramesh brought to light the irregularities in selecting candidates for B.Ed course under distance education programme last year. Ramesh had pointed to the alleged involvement of former Vice-Chancellor Dr R T Sabapathy in the scam.Express had exposed the scam with documentary evidence.  In his complaint, Ramesh said that he was being threatened continuously over the phone even during night hours after the scam was exposed. Ramesh said he feared for his life and requested the police security.“Initially, I did not take the threat calls so seriously because most of the time the number of the threat callers were not displayed. However, on August 8, I received repeated calls from +3444 and +4044 to my office mobile phone.” he said. Ramesh further said that the caller identified himself as a Chennaiite Meanwhile, the faculty members of the university and members of various outfits have demanded an immediate probe into the scam. “The staff, who were involved in this scam and a few other frauds, like signing memoranda of understanding with foreign universities and construction of buildings, have already started tampering with documents. Unless the Government acts swiftly, they would damage all the evidence,” a faculty member said, supported by a section of his colleagues.When contacted Minister for Higher Education P Palaniappan, said, ”We assured Ramesh not to worry about the threat and that the government is with him. We have also written to the DVAC to probe the issue.