Kerala: NRI Businessman Commits Suicide Over Stalled Project; Venture Gets Clearance 18 Days Later

A Nigeria-based NRI businessman allegedly committed suicide on June 18 after his Rs 16 Crore State-of-the-art convention centre located in Kerala’s Kannur was seized by a local civic body. His project, after 18 days of his death, has officially got a clearance, the announcement regarding the same was made on July 6.

What Happened

Sajan Pariyal, 49, hanged himself at his house. He was said to be highly disappointed with the way he was being treated by the Anthoor Municipality Chairperson, P.K. Shymala. Shyamala reportedly refused to give clearance for his project.

Sajan’s wife, Beena said that P.K. Shymala, at one point went onto say that he will not get clearance as long as she held the post.

In the aftermath of Pariyal’s suicide, the state government suspended a total of four Municipality employees. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also provided the assurance in the assembly that things will be sorted out soon.

After making sure that all the sought changes have been made, local self-government secretary T.K. Jose directed Municipality secretary to make sure that occupancy certificate is issued on July 8.

Why No Stringent Action Against Shyamala

While the government has been able to make a successful crackdown on some of the involved officials, the lack of action against Shyamala has raised eyebrows. It is alleged that since she is the wife of Vijayan’s closest aide and party’s central Committee member M.V. Govindan, she has been let go off easily.

It may be noted that Kerala’s ruling party has a commanding position in the municipality, which currently does not have even a single opposition party representative. This is also reported to have helped Shymala escape without much punishment. All the councillors, currently belong to the ruling Left Democratic Front.

Shyamala’s opposition in giving Sajan the requisite clearance reportedly came from the fact that he was close to P Jayarajan who is another powerful CPI-M Leader in Kannur.

The Congress-led opposition took up to the issue in a big way, which made the Kerala High Court take a strict note of the incident and directed the concerned authorities to be presented with all the relevant case-related files before July 5.

Consequently, took charge following Sajan’s shocking suicide. Last week, Congress led-UDF had quit the state government’s recently formed Loka Kerala Sabha (created for channelising the investments and expertise of various Malayali industrialists settled abroad for the state’s betterment), to pressurise Kerala government into taking proper action.

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