THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The special police team probing the accident case involving IAS officer Sriram Venkataraman is likely to receive the Event Data Recorder (EDR) of the car this week.
The EDR was retrieved by Pune-based experts who were appointed by the car manufacturers last month. An EDR could save several variables such as speed, steering, braking, seat belt use and force of impact. The cops are hoping that the data would dispel doubts whether the vehicle was surging above the speed limit when the accident happened.
The investigation so far has not been able to recover any evidence to suggest the speed of the vehicle. The police version is that the CCTV cameras on the Kowdiar-Museum stretch were not functioning. The images and visuals from private cameras offered little in judging the speed of the vehicle.
A senior cop associated with the probe said they expect the data from EDR within a couple of days. “The report is getting delayed because of holidays. We expect the date in two to three days,” said the officer.
The experts who retrieved the data recently had contacted police officers asking for more details regarding the crash. Sources said details such as the total distance travelled by the car in the final trip before the crash were sought. “We were told that such details were important while analysing the data retrieved from the EDR,” a police officers said.
If the data collected from the car can reveal the speed of the vehicle at the time of the crash, it could prove handy during the prosecution of the now-suspended IAS officer, the investigators believe.
The accident that killed K M Basheer, the unit head of Siraj daily, happened in the early hours of August 3. Sriram was behind the wheel when the accident occurred and was accompanied by Wafa Firoze, a model working in Dubai.