Dharmasthala ‘secret burials’: Complainant arrested for giving false information

The arrest of the former sanitation worker, who led the SIT on a two-week search of the bodies in forests around Dharmasthala between July 29 and August 12, comes at a time when the opposition BJP in Karnataka has proposed a state-wide protest over what it calls the anti-Hindu stance of the Congress government because of the probe.

Several aspects of the “secret burials” investigation, which began in July, have been unravelling over the last couple of weeks on account of the lack of evidence to substantiate claims — including that of an elderly woman who has filed a complaint stating that her daughter, a medical student at Manipal, went missing in Dharmasthala in the year 2003.

“This probe was started based on the information provided by the complainant. He has been arrested, and based on his statements, the investigations will proceed. After the SIT was handed the investigation, its priority is to conduct the probe. The SIT will use its own methods to find the truth,” Parameshwara said Saturday.

“The SIT is investigating the case. The case is in progress, and until the investigation is complete, we cannot comment on anything. It has to be investigated whether there is a conspiracy and a big network of people behind the conspiracy. Until a probe report is given, we cannot come to any conclusion, and there will be a lot of rumours and hearsay,” he said. “I cannot comment at present (on whether the investigations will be closed).”

Police sources said that no fresh FIR had been filed against the sanitation worker and that he had been detained with respect to alleged false information in his complaint.

Police sources said that investigators are looking at a potential conspiracy to malign the administrators of the Sree Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Temple Trust and its dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade, a Rajya MP associated with the BJP.

One of the chief activists behind the campaign to investigate the “secret burials”, Mahesh Thimaroddy, was arrested by the police in Udupi district on August 21 for allegedly defaming the BJP national secretary B L Santhosh.

A former Congress legislator in the Dakshina Kannada region, Vinay Sorakke, has suggested that the conspiracy over the “secret burials” involves a battle between different right-wing groups, while left-wing groups and social media have participated in making it a high-decibel campaign.

The allegation and the search for bodies

The former sanitation worker has claimed to have buried dozens of unidentified bodies in cases of suspicious deaths in the region between 1995 and 2014. He appeared before a magistrate’s court in Belthangady on July 11 to provide a court statement.

The SIT, which began the search for the remains on July 29, found remains of only one body in the form of bones at one of 13 locations indicated by the worker, police sources said.

“There will be searches in two more locations and then the search operations will be called off,” police sources said.

While a woman who claimed to be a former CBI stenographer had also come forward to allege that her daughter, an MBBS student in KMC Manipal, had gone missing in Dharmasthala in 2003, the police probe into the allegation has also not substantiated the claims.

Speaking to a YouTube channel – the video was uploaded on Thursday – the woman indicated she did not have a daughter and said, “Some people came to me and asked me to make these allegations. Due to this, I had to say it.”

The woman had filed a complaint on July 15, days after Dharmasthala police registered an FIR on July 4 following the sanitation worker’s complaint.

Then, on Thursday evening, she told reporters she was forced by the YouTube channel to claim that she had filed the complaint due to a property dispute with the temple. “They promised to help me,” she claimed.

On her statement that she did not have a daughter, she claimed that she was made to say so.

Political pressure

There has been growing pressure on the Congress government in Karnataka to call off the operations due to the lack of progress, to prevent further harm to the reputation of the Sree Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara temple in Dharmasthala.

At a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in early August, there were calls from many MLAs to halt the search operations in the interest of the reputation of the temple town. The opposition BJP has accused the Congress government of hurting the sentiments of devotees with the probe and has called for the tabling of an interim report on the probe.

Karnataka deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar has also questioned the probe. “The Dharmadhikari of Dharmasthala is doing yeoman service; we have no doubt about it. Someone has alleged crimes due to an internal feud. When many complaints have come, the home minister or the government can’t ignore them. We believe in the holiness of Dharmasthala more than you,” Shivakumar said in the state assembly this week.

“A conspiracy has been hatched to destroy hundreds of years of legacy. It is not correct to tarnish someone just like that. It has all happened due to one complainant,” he alleged.