Sendmail

my $email = populateEmail("test");
print $email;

open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -i") or print "cannot open
SENDMAIL: $!";
print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
From: <deepan\@juniper.net>
To:${email}
Subject: [SUSTAINING TICKET] Case
Content-type: text/html
	testing..
EOF
	close(SENDMAIL);


When i a using the above code it results in "No recipient address
found in header" and when i replace ${email} with "dpr.17\@gmail.com"
ie

To : dpr.17\@gmail.com it works fine.

populateEmail function's code is available below:

populateEmail {
      if(lc($_[0]) eq "test") {
	     return ("deepan.ignatius\@gmail.com");
      }
}

Can anyone spot the bug?