Kannur: A day after the suicide of Nigeria-returned entrepreneur Sajen Parayil after Anthoor civic body officials delayed building permit for his newly-constructed Rs 15-crore convention centre at Pakkalam in Kerala's Kannur district, relatives and friends of the builder on Wednesday came out against municipality chairperson and CPM leader P K Shyamala.
Even though Shyamala and the CPM denied any role in delaying the documents, people close to Sajen revealed a different story in which the civic body chief is the villain.
Relatives alleged that Shyamala's threats and acts of vengeance had forced Sajen to take the extreme step. Sajen, who slogged for years in Nigeria and came back to Kerala to set up his own business with the hard-earned money, hanged himself on Tuesday unable to stand the apathy of the civic body officials.
One of the relatives said Shyamala had threatened Sajen a couple of days ago saying, "You'll not get a permit for the convention centre as long as I am the chairperson."
She was apparently angry over the fact that Sajen had approached former CPM district secretary P Jayarajan seeking help. Sajen, 49, was also a CPM supporter.
"You seem to have contacts in higher circles. You may approach them for the building number and ownership certificate as well," she apparently told Sajen when he sought her help for getting the building ownership certificate.
It is also suspected that factionalism within the municipal council delayed the certificate.
In 2018, the municipality had issued a notice to demolish the Rs 15-crore Partha Convention Centre when construction was mid-way. Sajen then approached P Jayarajan with a complaint. Following this, the town planning department conducted an inspection on October 31, 2018 and issued a report in favour of Sajen. Despite this, he was not given the permit to complete the construction.
Fearing he would never be able to open the convention centre due to the municipality’s attitude, Sajen killed himself on Tuesday, revealed his wife Beena and father-in-law P Purushothaman. “The CPM district leadership's intervention and the town planning department's favourable report irked the municipal chairperson. Even though the works were completed in April, the municipal officials denied him the ownership certificate, putting him through mental distress,” the family claimed.
No role, says Shyamala
“It was a procedural delay and nothing more. No threats were issued,” P K Shyamala said, denying the allegations. Shyamala is the wife of CPM central committee member M V Govindhan.
The department of town planning had stated in its report that no major violation of norms, warranting denial of permit, was detected in the construction.
Chief town planning officer and the municipality had carried out inspections before granting permission to build the convention centre.
The inspection revealed that the construction did not deviate significantly from the original plan. Only the construction of one slab on the ground floor was not in accordance with the plan.
The joint group asked the builder to remove the extra slab and re-apply for the permits. Following this, the owner submitted a new application.
Action will be taken against guilty: CM
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the assembly that stringent action would be taken against the officials if found guilty. "We will conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations," Pinarayi said in reply to a notice for the adjournment motion moved by Congress MLA Sunny Joseph. Protesting against the incident, the opposition had walked out of the Kerala Assembly on Wednesday.
Rights panel registers case
The state Human Rights' Commission has filed a suo motu case following the suicide of Sajen. Commission member P Mohanadas has instructed the district police chief to conduct an investigation into the matter and submit a report in a week's time. The Secretary of the Local Self Government department has also been asked to look into the reasons for the delay in giving ownership certificate.
Another case of official apathy
After Sajen committed suicide, a woman entrepreneur, Sohitha Viju, too narrated the harassment she suffered at the hands of Anthoor civic body officials and its chairperson P K Shyamala.
“I had started a small initiative of making and selling cleaning equipment when Taliparamba was a municipality. Within a year, the Anthoor municipality was formed and I received a notice to shut down my enterprise for causing pollution,” she said in a Facebook post.
“Though I applied several times for municipality's permission, I was not given it. I started incurring huge debts after the initiative started with Rs 10 lakh was stalled. The families of my workers were starving. When I met the chairperson to know what the trouble was, I was asked to start my enterprise in Mumbai or Coimbatore," she claimed.
“Once I realised that continuing the business in the area was a distant dream, I shifted the unit to Kinfra park at Nadukani in Taliparamba. I had to shell out Rs 40 lakh due to the unwarranted delay in the project. Later, with the intervention of the CPM leadership, we shifted our enterprise,” she recounted.
