A former sanitation worker in Dharmasthala who created an online sensation in 2025 with allegations of “secret burials” in the temple town – before being accused by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police for spreading false information – has questioned the delay by the SIT in filing a charge sheet and prosecuting others.
The former sanitation worker, C N Chinnaiah, who was released on bail in November 2025, has stated in the plea filed in the Karnataka High Court on June 8, 2026, that the SIT has only named him as an accused but has not filed a final report in the case.
Chinnaiah’s petition says the SIT filed a preliminary inquiry report, wherein it has named five persons as conspirators in perpetrating the claim of “secret burials” on social media and among the public in general.
“Though they have named… persons as conspirators, there is no action taken against them. Further, there is no separate crime case registered against them for having played fraud on the court and having caused loss to the state exchequer through the process of law,” states the writ petition, which has been accepted by the high court.
“Non-completion of the investigation and non-taking of action against those persons named in the preliminary enquiry report is nothing but failure on the part of Special Investigation Team to discharge their statutory duties,” says the plea by the former sanitation worker.
Charges ‘not grave’
A district court in Dakshina Kannada granted bail to Chinnaiah on November 24, 2025, in the case of providing false evidence and information on “secret burials” after pointing out that the charges against the former sanitation worker were not grave in nature.
At the same time last year, the Karnataka Police SIT set up to investigate the alleged “secret burials” in the temple town in the Dakshina Kannada district filed a report in a local court for possible initiation of perjury charges against the complainant after finding no evidence for the “secret burials”.
The SIT filed a report under Section 215 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, in a Belthangady magistrate’s court for initiation of process by the court under Section 379 of BNSS for perjury in November 2025.
Chinnaiah, who claimed to have carried out dozens of secret burials, was arrested by the SIT on August 23, 2026, after searches over a month for bodies proved futile.
The filing of a report under Section 215 of the BNSS will allow the initiation of perjury charges against Chinnaiah and others who are alleged in the SIT report of conspiring to create a fake narrative about the involvement of Dharmasthala temple authorities in “secret burials”.
Chinnaiah produced a skull, claiming it to have been part of the “secret burials” he had conducted at the temple town. SIT investigations, however, allegedly revealed that the skull was given by the uncle of a 2012 teen rape-murder victim. The 2012 murder probe did not stand up to legal scrutiny, and no one was found guilty in the end.
‘Wider conspiracy’
The former sanitation worker was allegedly part of a conspiracy hatched by several activists in the region – including former right-wing activists Mahesh Thimmarody, Girish Mattanavar, left-wing activist Jayanth T, and Vittal Gowda – to target the Dharmasthala temple authorities who wield a lot of clout in the administration of the temple town.
Police sources said that investigations had suggested a conspiracy to malign the administrators of the Sree Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Temple Trust and its dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP associated with the BJP.
The former sanitation worker in the Dharmasthala region has claimed to have buried dozens of unidentified bodies in cases of suspicious deaths in the region between 1995 and 2014. Based on the former sanitation worker’s allegations, the Dharmasthala police filed an FIR on July 4, 2025, but sought an official statement from him in court.
“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 his advocates ahead of the filing of the case.
The former sanitation worker appeared before a magistrate’s court in Belthangady on July 11, 2025, to provide a statement to substantiate his claims.
On July 19, 2025, the Congress government constituted an SIT headed by DGP Pranab Mohanty to probe the claims.
A two-week search for the remains of bodies from the alleged secret burials in the Dharmasthala region of Karnataka, however, yielded no major results.
The SIT, which began the search for the remains of secretly buried bodies on July 29, 2025, on the basis of allegations made by the sanitation worker, found remains of only one body in the form of bones at one of 13 locations indicated by the worker, police sources said.
The remains of a person who died by suicide were found hanging from a tree during the search operations on the banks of the river Nethravati and the forests surrounding the bathing ghats near Dharmasthala, and a case of unnatural death was taken up, sources added.
While a woman who claimed to be a former CBI stenographer had come forward to also make an allegation that her daughter, who was an MBBS student, had gone missing in Dharmasthala in 2003, the probe into the allegation could not substantiate the claims.
Sources said the claims of the woman being a former CBI employee and having a daughter who studied MBBS did not pass the scrutiny during verifications.
On July 19, 2025, the Congress government constituted an SIT to probe the claims of secret burials in Dharmasthala. (File Photo) 
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