It will soon be a week since a recklessly driven car, allegedly by young and promising bureaucrat Sriram Venkatraman, mowed down and killed a young and promising journalist, Mohammed Basheer. It happened on the VVIP road linking the official residence of the Kerala Chief Minister and his Cabinet to the state secretariat, the equivalent of Mantralaya in Maharashtra. The ghastly accident on August 3 took place a stone’s throw away from the Museum Police Station in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.
One is not sure if Venkatraman was at the wheel and whether he was in an inebriated state as some early respondents alleged — what’s more, we will probably never be able to confirm these allegations because the police and officials at the government hospital failed to take his blood sample right after the accident! The case is developing new contours so fast, one cannot predict what fresh twists and turns it will take in the coming days. The alacrity with which the Kerala Police succumbed to pressure and blatantly waived what would have been mandatory steps if the accident had involved an ordinary man has generated intense debates across Kerala.
Venkatraman was taken into custody but the die was well and truly cast for his escape route as his blood test taken a questionable 10 hours after he was nabbed. The outcome, to be expected, followed in the guise of the rather effortless grant of bail by the first class judicial magistrate. The state government made all the right sounds — from saying that ‘the guilty will not be spared’ to ‘expect strict action’.
Even the weak words cautioning the state police against acts of commission in the case of recent custodial deaths never came from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who also handles the home portfolio. He did not care to make a similar remark perhaps because he does not see this act of omission as a serious misconduct. The empty gesture by the state government — of challenging the bail application — caused some ire for the high court bench.
This is not the first time in the recent past that the CPI(M)-led government is closing its eyes to doing the right thing. The general public yet again witnessed the Left government setting things right in its own unique fashion.
Two years ago, the firebrand IAS officer had set the cat among the pigeons with his eviction drive against dozens of squatters on revenue land in the scenic hills of Munnar. The high moral ground he took while enforcing the law by its letter and spirit on taking on the elected government earned him many fans. He was soon compared to the super bureaucrat Joseph Alex, a character played by film actor Mammootty in the 1995 film The King. Now, after the August 3 accident, his case resembles more that of Salman Khan’s 2002 hit and run case.
Having taken recourse to accepting help from the police to beat the drunk driving rap, some Left leaders, including senior ministers, have got Venkatraman in a tight spot. In time when he comes out of this difficult situation that he has landed himself in, Sriram Venkatraman 2.0 is bound to be a mellowed version, more amenable to political demands.
At least this is what the political machinery would be expecting. However, all these would not matter to Basheer’s orphaned children, his young widow or his bereaved parents. If this had happened in any of the West Asian countries , where most youngsters of Basheer’s age group from Malappuram go to build a carrier, there would have been the prospect of speedy justice and also what some would term as a primitive intervention by the way of blood money.
Basheer was winding up his days’ work and probably heading home while he was mowed down by a car. Venkatraman, along with a friend, was returning after attending a party that was held in his honour. According to Wafa Firos, Venkatraman’s friend in the car, the bureaucrat was on the wheel and was in an inebriated state. The accident can be put down to bad karma but the cover-up that followed cannot be condoned.
It is not clear whether Basheer will get justice. One can only hope, for the sake of Basheer’s hapless family, it will be meted out.
Vinod Mathew is a senior journalist based in Kochi. Views are personal.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
