Technicians working for an automaker on Monday inspected the car involved in the fatal accident that claimed the life of journalist K.M. Basheer early August 3.
Investigators said they might use the evidence collected by the specialists in their probe into the suspected drunk driving-related accident that involved IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman. The police had indicted Mr. Venkitaraman for culpable homicide in connection with Basheer’s death.
An investigator who talked to the technicians said the automaker hoped to determine the speed at which the car, purportedly steered by Mr. Venkitaraman, was travelling when it rammed Basheer’s motorbike. The collision killed the journalist on the spot, mangled his motorbike and dented the front portion of the car.
Structural damage
The technicians inspected the damaged car parked near the museum station. They took pictures, made measurements and assessed how the shock of the impact had structurally damaged the vehicle.
They also reviewed how various safety systems in the car, including airbags and seat belts, reacted at the time of the crash.
Investigators said modern cars automatically recorded crash data. However, they were unsure whether the vehicle involved in the crime had such inbuilt systems. However, they said they would seek legal opinion to find out whether the police could use the technicians as expert witnesses in the case against Mr. Venkitaraman.
Another official said the accident reconstruction tools employed by the police were still at an abacus level. Officials involved in police modernisation were aware of the lacunae and efforts were on to procure the latest software tools to reconstruct accidents from data drawn from the field to fix accountability.
Delay
Basheer’s death had riveted public attention and later caused an outcry when evidence surfaced that the police had ‘incriminatingly delayed’ subjecting Mr. Venkitaraman to the mandatory blood alcohol concentration test to allegedly help him evade the law.
The bungling had earned the censure of the High Court. It had had also triggered widespread speculation that a top-level bureaucrat and doctors at a private hospital had meddled to destroy implicating evidence in the case.
Kerala has one among the highest accident rates in the country. As many as 4,200 persons died in road accidents in 2018. An average of 11 persons die every day and rash and negligent driving, speeding and drunk driving are the leading causes.