Thiruvananthapuram: The deputy tehsildar of Vellarikundu taluk, in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram district, has been suspended for his obscene Facebook post against Ranjitha G Nair, one of the victims of Thursday’s air crash in Ahmedabad.
A Pavithran, the deputy tehsildar, made the comments from the profile ‘Pavi Anandashramam’. The post was full of obscenities, aimed not only at Ranjitha, but women at large. In his post, Pavithran claimed that Ranjitha met with the accident because she had taken leave from the Kerala government and gone abroad.
He made another post with Ranjitha’s photograph, telling her to reach ‘greater heights’. Though Pavithran deleted the posts after they went viral on social media, screenshots were widely circulated.
Ranjitha (39), a nurse, was returning home to the UK when she was killed. A resident of Pullad in Pathanamthitta, she was a nurse in Muscat, Oman, 10 years ago. She returned to Kerala thereafter and took the PSC examination and got a job as a nurse in the health department. She joined the Pathanamthitta District Hospital and then applied for a five-year leave.
After being granted leave, Ranjitha left for Muscat once again and joined the SQH Hospital there a year ago. From there, she moved to the UK. Her plan was to return to Kerala in September and join the Kozhencherry District Hospital. She flew back to her state from the UK on Saturday to complete the necessary paperwork.
On Wednesday, she boarded a flight from Kochi to Chennai. From Chennai, she flew to Ahmedabad to take the Air India flight to Gatwick, London.
Officials said that Ranjitha had done nothing against the rules. Long-term leave (without pay) is granted to government employees. Her dream was to build a house next to her family property and she was working abroad to save enough money for that.
This is not the first time that Pavithran has gotten into trouble for his social media posts. In the past, action was taken against him for his post against former minister and Kanhangad MLA E Chandrasekharan.
