Former AIADMK Tourism Minister and Kadayanallur Member of Legislative Assembly, Nagoor Meeran, has died at the age of 55, as per a report in The Hindu.
He passed away in Madurai after a prolonged illness caused by renal failure.
Meeran was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1991 from the Kadayanallur constituency, becoming one of Jayalalithaa's youngest ministers in the cabinet holding the Tourism portfolio.
Following the AIADMK’s rout in the 1996 elections, Nagoor Meeran was one of the first to be slapped with charges of holding disproportionate assets. The DMK filed a slew of cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Jayalalithaa and her former lawmakers.
The newspaper reports that while Nagoor Meeran and his wife Jameela Meeran were initially convicted by a Special Court, and sentenced to a year of rigorous imprisonment, they were later acquitted by the Madras High Court in 2012.
In 2010, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board scam came to light, where it was discovered that the the Government's Discretionary Quota (GDQ) had been used to benefit several senior bureaucrats, police officers, judges and lawmakers.
According to one report in the Times of India, the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi released a list of beneficiaries who had received plots under the GDQ during the erstwhile AIADMK government.
It was discovered that Nagoor Meeran’s wife was given a 2,559 sq feet of land at Kottivakkam, south Chennai, in 1993.
He is survived by his wife Noor Jamila and sons Mubarak and Suleiman.