New Delhi: The Kerala Police have come under fire for not acting in a timely fashion after IAS officer Sriram Venkitraman, allegedly in an inebriated state, mowed down a journalist.Venkitaraman was arrested after a car he was driving rammed the motorcycle of a journalist and killed him on Saturday morning. Though Venkitraman was remanded to 14 days judicial custody on Saturday night, he continues to be in a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram under police surveillance.The journalist who was killed in the collision was identified as 35-year-old K. Mohammed Basheer, the bureau chief of Siraj, a Malayalam daily. He is survived by wife Jaseela and two children. According to The News Minute, his funeral was held on Saturday night at Vadakara, his hometown in Kozhikode district.A police officer told PTI that Venkitaraman’s left hand was in a plaster due to the accident. A three-member police team has been posted at his room in the hospital. He will be moved to a jail once he is discharged.His blood sample was drawn only nine hours after the incident, and has been sent for chemical examination to ascertain if he had consumed liquor and then drove his car.Eyewitnesses reported that though the IAS officer exited the car after the collision, and looked to be inebriated, police officers who reached the spot did not swing into action. According to reports, blood was not drawn immediately, while the police also did not take photographs or video evidence of the scene.According to The Hindu, the officers hustled the driver away to a general hospital without questioning him. The newspaper also reports that the police did not immediately record the accounts of at least three persons who had witnessed the accident. A woman who was also in the car was allowed to go home, though Basheer was killed on the spot.A journalists’ union expressed outrage at the way the investigation was handled.The 33-year-old IAS officer, who was appointed survey director by the state cabinet on Thursday, was arrested under Section 279 (rash driving on a public way) and 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code. Venkitraman has been charged under a non-bailable offence and if found guilty, could serve imprisonment up to 10 years.Meanwhile, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the government will not protect anyone who has gone against the law, irrespective of their position. “Everyone is equal before justice and law,” Vijayan said, addressing a passing out parade of women cadets at Thrissur.Venkitaraman, also a medical doctor and a Fulbright fellow, allegedly drove his car rashly and hit the stationary motorcycle of Basheer (35) at a road in the heart of the city as he was returning home from work.Just days before the collision, the IAS officer had returned to Kerala from the US, after completing a master of public health programme at the Harvard University. Venkitaraman was reportedly returning home after attending a private party in a club.Wafa Firoze, a model and the wife of a Dubai-based businessman, was also in the vehicle at the time of the mishap. She is the owner of the car.