© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
A skull claimed to have been dug up by a former sanitation worker from alleged secret burials in the temple town of Dharmasthala in Karnataka was not found by the worker himself but was given by others, a public prosecutor informed a Dakshina Kannada court during his recent bail hearing.
A district court in Dakshina Kannada Monday granted bail to the former sanitation worker, C N Chinnaiah, in the case of providing false evidence and information on “secret burials” after pointing out that the charges against him were not grave in nature.
The court was informed, based on the findings of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police, which was constituted on July 19 this year to probe the July 4 FIR on “secret burials”, that exhumations were done in 18 places on the guidance of the informant but skeletal remains were found only in three places.
When “the investigating officer inquired with the petitioner, then he has stated that the skull was not taken out by digging the said land, but at the instance of some other persons”, the Dakshina Kannada court noted in its bail order on November 24.
The court noted that based on the SIT’s findings, “the skull and the mud said to be collected is given by others and on the instructions of those persons he has produced the same before the police”.
During the arguments in the bail petition, Chinnaiah claimed that he had not specified any numbers for the bodies he had buried and not guaranteed the finding of the remains of the bodies. He claimed that since the burials were on the side of a river, many bodies may have been washed away along with the water.
He also argued that the “SIT has not made any attempt to secure the people at whose behest the petitioner is said to have buried the bodies nor made any attempt to investigate such people”.
The public prosecutor told the court that the filing of false information by the worker had resulted in the loss of crores of rupees to the state exchequer through the creation of the SIT and the search operations for remains of bodies, which were conducted for two weeks.
“In spite of searching many places, only in three places some skeletal (remains) was found. The petitioner misled the Government machinery. Because of the appointment of SIT the Government had spent crores of public money,” the district court noted in its order based on the arguments of the public prosecutor.
“Now the investigation is in crucial stage as the SIT is investigating the role of others who are Mahesh Shetty Thimarodi, Girish Mattannavar, Jayanth T, Vittala Gowda, Pradeep, Munaf and others,” the court noted.
“If the entire allegations are taken into consideration, the petitioner would not be liable to be punished with the maximum sentence of death punishment. Hence, it is clear that there are no grave nature of allegations against the petitioner for having committed the grave offences,” the court said while granting bail to Chinnaiah, who was arrested on August 23.
The bail was granted on execution of a personal bond of Rs 10,000 with two sureties, subject to the condition of being available for investigations. Among the conditions imposed by the district court when granting bail to Chinnaiah was that “he shall not abscond” and that “he shall not give any kind of interview/ statement pertaining” to the crime to “social media or TV channels or press/newspaper”.
The court granted bail to Chinnaiah four days after the SIT filed a report in a magistrate’s court in Belthangady, in the Dakshina Kannada district, for the initiation of a perjury case against the former sanitation worker and others who allegedly created a “fake narrative”.
The SIT filed the report under Section 215 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) on November 20 before a Belthangady magistrate, seeking initiation of process under Section 379 of BNSS for perjury, SIT sources said. The filing of a report under section 215 of the BNSS will allow the initiation of perjury charges against Chinnaiah and others alleged in the SIT report, sources said.
The filing of a report under section 215 of the BNSS itself came on the heels of the Karnataka High Court lifting a stay on investigations in the secret burials case on November 12.
The police said the former sanitation worker was allegedly part of a conspiracy hatched by several activists in the region, including former right-wing activists Mahesh Thimmarody and Girish Mattanavar; left-wing activist Jayanth T, and Vittal Gowda, to target the Dharmasthala temple authorities.
Girish Mattannavar, Mahesh Thimmarody, Jayanth T, and Vittal Gowda approached the HC on October 30 to quash the FIR in the case, which was based on Chinnaiah’s complaint. The activists have not been accused in the original case but are likely to be named if the courts order the initiation of a perjury case.
The allegations of secret burials created a sensation in Karnataka earlier this year after the sanitation worker appeared before the police with a skull in an effort to prove his claims of participating in secret burials in the 1998-2014 period when he worked in Dharmasthala.
The claims came amid conspiracy theories circulating about the family of the temple administrators at Dharmasthala, currently headed by Veerendra Heggade, a BJP-allied Rajya Sabha member.
Chinnaiah produced a skull that he claimed was part of the “secret burials” he had conducted at the temple town. SIT investigations, however, revealed that the skull was given by an uncle of a 2012 teenage rape and murder victim in the region.
The 2012 murder probe did not stand up to legal scrutiny, and no one was found guilty in the end due to the tampering of evidence despite probes by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the local police.
The complainant, who worked as a sanitation worker in Dharmasthala from 1995 to 2014 and whose identity remained protected initially, claimed that he witnessed some murders being committed in a “cruel manner” and that he was subsequently forced to dispose of the bodies.
“I have buried hundreds of bodies and the final rites were not performed respectfully. The guilt is haunting me and I believe that the final rites should be performed to pave a respectful farewell to the deceased,” he said in a letter sent to the police through advocates ahead of the filing of the case.
