The Kerala government has appointed murder-accused IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman as the district collector of Alappuzha.
Sriram Venkataraman takes charge as the district collector of Alappuzha. (South First)
When a powerful Christian evangelical group encroached government land at Pappathi Chola near Kerala’s famous hill station Munnar in April 2017 and erected an iron cross there, young and energetic civil service officer Sriram Venkitaraman — in his capacity as the local sub-collector — ordered it pulled down. The action elicited large-scale public acclaim.
However, the razing of the cross did not go well with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who was in his first term in power, and his then cabinet colleague MM Mani, arguably the CPI(M)’s strongest man in Munnar and surroundings, which constitute the Idukki district.
Mani, infamous for his derogatory and outlandish comments on opponents, accused Venkitaraman of conspiring with the BJP-RSS to bring down the cross and hurt the sentiments of the Christian community in the state.
He said that the government official must be banished to a mental asylum.
On his part, Vijayan compared the act with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992.
Sriram Venkitaraman takes charge as Alapuzha district collector on Tuesday. (Supplied)
But Venkitaraman continued his actions against encroachers without any visible partiality for a few more months until the angry ruling party managed to transfer him to a less critical position: director of employment and training.
Born in an influential Brahmin family of Kochi and having attained the second rank in the civil service examination in 2013, this medical doctor-turned-civil service officer soon went on leave and opted for a higher education programme in the US.
In 2019, Venkitaraman returned to Kerala, ending his extended leave from service, and the government appointed him the head of the survey department.
On the night of 3 August that year, he turned prime accused in an infamous hit-and-run case in which Malayalam journalist KM Basheer was killed.
Venkitaraman was about to take charge as survey director the next day.
His friends had organised a cocktail party in his honour at a guest house for civil-service officers in the posh Kowdiar region of Thiruvananthapuram.
At the end of the party, Venkitaraman is said to have taken his friend Wafa Firoz for company and engaged in drunken driving.
The speeding car lost control and hit the two-wheeler of Basheer, resulting in the death of the veteran journalist, who was working as bureau chief of the daily Siraj.
Vijayan and Mani made scathing remarks about him. They claimed the developments vindicated their early observations about the civil-service officer.
When reports emerged that Venkaraman was engaged in destroying evidence against him, the chief minister said the state government would not let him go scot-free. Vijayan said the rule of law would prevail, and Basheer would get justice.
Sriram Venkitaraman, an old picture. (South First)
On his part, Venkitaraman maintained that he was suffering from retrograde amnesia — a form of memory loss that the trauma of the accident might have caused.
It is unclear whether the state government subsequently received any medical report saying that Venkitaraman had been wholly cured it recently appointed him district magistrate of Alappuzha.
Venkitaraman also faced allegations of manipulating the whole system to weaken the case against him.
Intense pressure from journalists, human-rights activists, and the general public forced the state police to charge him with culpable homicide amounting to murder, rash and negligent driving, drunk driving, and destroying evidence.
He now faces trial in a criminal court in Thiruvananthapuram along with his friend Wafa Firoz, and it is expected that the verdict will be pronounced in the coming months.
Meanwhile, the animosity between Venkitaraman and the ruling CPI(M) seems to have mellowed over the years.
In March last year, the Cabinet comprising Vijayan and Mani appointed him the state’s nodal health officer in charge of the Covid-19 war room.
They seemed to have forgotten that his memory loss was not an allegation levelled by his rivals but a mental condition he had admitted to the criminal court.
Within months, he was given the additional charge of a fact-checking team set up by the government to fight the spread of fake news related to Covid-19 in Malayalam publications, online portals, and television news channels, apart from social media.
When journalists claimed the new posting was aimed at targeting mediapersons who critically approach government plans and policies, mainly those taken in the backdrop of the fight against Covid-19, he was transferred and posted as joint secretary in charge of the Kerala Medical Services Corporation.
This agency procures essential medicines for various government hospitals in the state.
Hardly a year has gone by since, and now Venkitaraman finds himself appointed district collector of Alappuzha in central Kerala, a surprise move favouring him.
Venkitaraman was posted in Alappuzha after his wife and previous collector Renu Raj was transferred to nearby Ernakulam in the same post, the former move hinting that he had turned into a blue-eyed boy of the government.
“It’s a rarity that husband and wife can work as district collectors in neighbouring districts. The distance between Alappuzha and Ernakulam is hardly one hour. Gone are the days when the government treated him with a vengeance. His track record in the Health Department as a subservient officer might have pleased Vijayan and his team,” senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala told South First.
However, Youth Congress activists waving black flags greeted Venkitaraman on the morning of Tuesday, 26 July, when he reached the Alappuzha collectorate to take charge.
Meanwhile, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) is fuming even more over his new appointment, which gives Venkitaraman — as district magistrate — the responsibility to preserve law and order in the district.
Sriram Venkitaraman. (South First)
“What message does the government convey to the people of Kerala through this appointment? Will he include his name in the annual list he has to prepare as district magistrate on people facing criminal cases in the district? Many witnesses in the murder case are living and working in Alappuzha. What is the guarantee that he would not use his position as district magistrate to influence them?” asked KUWJ president KP Raji.
The Siraj management, various Muslim organisations, and human-rights activists have urged the government to reconsider the posting.
However, Vijayan is yet to make any public comment on it.
The family of Basheer has accused Venkitaraman of skipping court proceedings to prolong the final verdict.
The trial court issued warrants against him at least three times in the last two years for not responding to its summons.
On all those days, he was punctual at his office in the state secretariat, despite the court being hardly 3 km from the secretariat.
The 70-page charge sheet filed by the Special Investigation Team of the Crime Branch, which probed the case, listed 100 witnesses and submitted 75 pieces of evidence.
It stated that the 33-year-old officer was drunk and behind the wheels of the speeding car while returning from a private party at midnight on 3 August, 2019.
The Volkswagen Venta hit Basheer, who was on his motorcycle, and he died on the spot, said the charge sheet.
Ironically, the same day an impressive speech on road safety Venkitaraman delivered at an event organised by the Kerala Police went viral on social media.
The charge sheet said Venkitaraman, himself a medical doctor, allowed the police to collect his blood sample for examination only nine hours after the accident and after getting himself admitted to a private hospital in the state capital.
Lacking a medical certificate that Venkitaraman’s blood alcohol level was over the limit at the time of the collision, the investigators have had to rely on the testimonies of doctors, first responders, police officers, and witnesses.
The charge sheet also said he would have been clocking above 100 km an hour when the accident occurred. The legal speed limit in the tiny neighbourhood that was the crime scene is 50 km per hour.
Arrested nearly 17 hours after the incident, Venkitaraman was shifted to the local medical college hospital after journalists and Basheer’s family protested over the “five-star treatment” being accorded to him at a private hospital.
When he was given charge of the Covid-19 war room, what seemed to have counted with the state government was his MBBS degree, which he had earned before becoming a civil servant and acquiring a Master’s degree in Public Health he got from the University of Harvard.
“It’s an insult to the people of Kerala that a person facing the charge of destroying evidence is a district magistrate. The government must revoke the decision and keep him suspended until the trial in the hit-and-run case is over,” Basheer’s wife C Jaseela told South First.
“We will resist the move in all possible ways. Injustice to Basheer will not be tolerated,” she added.
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