Thiruvananthapuram: IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman who was remanded to judicial custody has been shifted to the prison cell at Government Medical College Hospital yesterday.
An inebriated Sriram had allegedly drove his car in a rash manner and hit the stationary motorcycle of K Muhammed Basheer (35), bureau chief of Malayalam newspaper ‘Siraj’, and killing him instantly. Sriram who was also hurt in the accident got himself admitted in KIMS Hospital soon after the accident. He was arrested 17 hours after the accident and remanded to 14 days judicial custody.
After getting discharged from the hospital, he was taken to the residence of Judicial First Class Magistrate Amal S R, who examined the medical reports and directed Sriram to be taken to the district jail at nearby Poojappura.
After this, the jail medical officer recommended that the accused be shifted to the remand cell at the Medical College Hospital.
A media report said that the IAS officer was accompanied by a female friend, Wafa Firoze, when the accident happened. Initially he refused to give his blood sample and said that his friend was the one who was driving the car. But she denied it. Followed by this, nine hours after the accident, the blood sample of Sriram was taken and sent for test, the results of which will be submitted today.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, State ministers Kadakampally Surendran, E Chandrashekharan, P Thilothaman, Opposition leader in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala, CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran and other MLAs paid their respects to Basheer after his mortal remains were brought to the Press Club here.
Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala of Congress said that there was a possibility of the officer using his high-level connections to bail himself out and demanded that the officer be suspended. “The failure to collect the blood sample of Venkitaraman immediately after the accident is a serious lapse on behalf of the police,” Chennithala said in a statement.