IAS officer, accused in death of journalist, removed as Alappuzha district collector after protests

Sriram Venkitaraman has been removed as Alappuzha District Collector by the Kerala government. The IAS officer is accused in a drunk-driving accident that caused the death of a journalist in 2019.

Sriram Venkitaraman, an IAS officer- an accused in the death of a journalist in a drunk-driving case, has been removed from the post of Alappuzha district collector. The development comes after protest marches were held by several organisations and Youth wing of the Congress party in Thiruvananthapuram and Collectorates in other districts against the appointment of Sriram Venkitaraman as the Alappuzha collector.

Venkitaraman is an accused in a drunk-driving accident that caused the death of a journalist, K M Basheer, Bureau Chief of, Malayalam daily Siraj. He is the first accused in the controversial drunken driving accident that caused the death of journalist K M Basheer on August 3, 2019.

Venkitaraman has been appointed as the General Manager, Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited by the Kerala government.

The organisations and the opposition party demanded that Sriram’s appointment should be revoked.

According to the orders of the Kerala government, V R K Teja Mylavarapu, 2015 batch IAS officer, Director, Scheduled Castes Development Department has been transferred and posted as District Collector, Alappuzha.

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The IAS officer was returning from a late-night party with his friend Waha Firoz, who owns the car. He was inebriated and was speaking on the phone at the time of the accident.