THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the first time, a senior bureaucrat has rallied behind M Sivasankar.
In a Facebook post, V Venu, additional chief secretary (cultural affairs, planning and economic affairs), on Wednesday expressed his happiness to see Sivasankar “walk out free” and blamed the media for his incarceration in probe agencies’ custody and jail. The Facebook post came within a few hours of Sivasankar coming out of the Ernakulam district jail around 3pm.
“I cannot describe in words how happy I am to see Sivasankar walk out free. I believe he is innocent, and that the charges brought against him will fall through. I believe our media, for the most part, behaved in an unpardonable manner, hounding him and concocting stories,” said 56-year-old Venu. The 1990 batch IAS official was not keen to add anything further apart from what he penned in his Facebook post when TNIE contacted him.
Venu’s Facebook post has since attracted several comments from his friends’ list, comparing Sivasankar with former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan for being implicated wrongly. The endorsement from Venu has raised eyebrows in a section of bureaucrats.