Kannur: Revenue employees of Kasaragod and Kannur are likely to go on en mass casual leave on Wednesday, October 16, demanding a comprehensive inquiry into the death of Kannur Additional District Magistrate Naveen Babu P, and action against those responsible for his death.
Meanwhile, the BJP has announced a hartal (shutdown) in Kannur Corporation limit from 6 am to 6 pm on Wednesday, demanding booking Kannur District Panchayat president PP Divya for murder. Naveen Babu ended his life after Divya publicly humiliated him and accused him of corruption at his farewell meeting on Monday.
Meanwhile, a call for mass leave was circulated in the WhatsApp group of Village officials and Collectorate employees in Kannur and Kasaragod on Tuesday. Employees have responded positively to the call, said two senior officials affiliated to the CPI, which controls the Revenue Department. "No organisation has officially called for the mass leave. But we are not going to turn up. It is an emotional decision which we took on our personal capacity," said a senior official in Kasaragod Collectorate.
Most of Naveen Babu's career was spent in Kasaragod, and his wife Manjula also grew up and went to college in Kasaragod because her parents were posted in the district, said Revenue officials. Manjula too worked as Badoor village officer in Kasaragod in 2006. She is now the Additional Tahasildar of Konni in Pathanamthitta district.
Another official in Kannur Collectorate said that the number of people who would respond to the call for leave would be known only tomorrow. "We would either go on leave or turn up and work without marking attendance," he said. "The attendance would anyway be thin because BJP has called a hartal," he said. On Tuesday, employees in Kannur boycotted work and staged a protest demanding action against the culprits responsible for Naveen Babu's death.
Kasaragod has around 1,000 revenue employees and Kannur has around 1,500 Revenue employees, they said. Naveen Babu was the village officer in Kasaragod's Adoor village. As his career progressed, he was posted back in Kasaragod Collectorate as Junior Superintendent. Then he was posted back to his home district.
When he was promoted as Senior Superintendent, he was posted back in Kasaragod Collectorate, said a senior official who was Munjula's junior in Kasaragod Government College.
Later, was transferred to another district. He was posted back in Kasaragod as Deputy Collector (Election). He was promoted as Additional District Magistrate and posted in Kasaragod on April 30, 2023. As part of pre-election transfer, he was posted as Kannur ADM in January 2024.
"Naveen Babu is a pucca CPM sympathiser and member of the party's employee union. He had applied for a transfer to his home district in Pathanamthitta but the request was not considered because the CPM wanted its man in the ADM's post in Kannur," said an official in Kasaragod collectorate and member of Kerala Gazetted Officers Union, an organisation affiliated to the CPM.
The official who studied with Manjula said he knew Naveen Babu since 2006. "He is a very efficient officer. He is known to hold on to the files to study them. But when he starts clearing them, he does it in one go. Perhaps, that is what happened in Kannur, too. He is never known to sit on files for financial gain," the official said.
Another Collectorate official said that Naveen Babu was in charge of the Kasaragod Assembly constituency during the Chief Minister's Nava Kerala Sadas campaign. "He managed it well. There was no complaint against him then or during his long years of service as a Revenue employee in Kasaragod," he said.
In a statement, Revenue employees of Kasaragod said that Wednesday's protest was for demanding justice for Naveen Babu and also for the creation of a work environment that allows employees to work with dignity and without fear.