Dharmasthala mass burials: Whistleblower's lawyer hints Malayalis may be among victims

Kasaragod: The Kerala government has a constitutional right -- and perhaps a moral obligation -- to seek a role in the investigation into the alleged mass burials in Karnataka's temple town of Dharmasthala, said the whistleblower's counsel and Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay, even as the Karnataka government has constituted a special investigation team to probe the case.

The whistleblower, a 48-year-old Dalit man, formerly employed by Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Manjunatha Temple as a sanitation worker, said that the temple officials threatened him to bury "hundreds" of women, girls and men -- possibly sexually assaulted and murdered -- in forested areas in the temple town from 1995 to December 2014.

Adv Dhananjay said a lot of students and devotees from Kerala visit Dharmasthala, and at least some of the victims could be Keralites. When pointedly asked if the whistleblower had told him that he had buried Keralite victims too, he said he would not like to comment on that.

Dhananjay said that while policing traditionally falls under the jurisdiction of the host state, the Constitution of India allows for inter-state accountability, especially when the life and liberty of residents from one state may be at risk in another.

"Kerala’s role should be non-political and bipartisan,” Dhananjay noted, suggesting that the state government pass a near-unanimous Assembly resolution to legitimise its concerns. "Such a resolution would enable Kerala to approach the Supreme Court and seek permission to assist the investigation solely in the interest of justice."

He said this would not impinge on Karnataka’s sovereignty. "Instead, it offers an opportunity to build trust and strengthen public confidence in the investigation," he said.

Adv Dhananjay also urged the Kerala government to promptly move the apex court and formally seek permission for its police to assist in the case.

Karnataka forms SIT
Though Home Minister G Parameshwara initially rejected the demand for a Special Investigation Team (SIT), the state government constituted a special team to probe into allegations of mass rapes, murders, and secret burials in Dharmasthala, a major pilgrimage town in Dakshina Kannada district.

Dharmasthala
The SIT, comprising four IPS officers, was constituted on July 19 following widespread criticism that the police had sat on the complaint — filed on July 3 — without initiating exhumation, despite the whistleblower offering to pinpoint the burial site.

The team is headed by Pranab Mohanty, Director General of Police, Internal Security Division, Bengaluru. Its other members include M N Anucheth, DIG, Recruitment; Soumyalatha, DCP, City Armed Reserve; and Jithendra Kumar Dayama, SP, Internal Security Division.

The order allows the SIT to take over all related cases registered or likely to be registered across Karnataka. The team has been directed to submit its final report to the government "expeditiously".

To be sure, the Dharmasthala Police registered an FIR on July 4, on the direction of the court, under Section 211 (a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, for "omission to give notice or information to public servant by person legally bound to give it".

The FIR does not name anyone, but the section has a punishment of up to one month and a fine of ₹5,000.

MP for NIA probe
CPI's Rajya Sabha MP Sandosh Kumar P has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah urging an immediate probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into what he describes as a long-standing, systemic pattern of crimes in Karnataka’s temple town of Dharmasthala. In a letter dated July 19, the CPI leader from Kannur cites multiple cases over four decades -- including disappearances, murders, and alleged cover-ups -- as evidence of an organised criminal network operating with impunity, often targeting women.

Drawing on RTI records, whistleblower testimony, and a recent explosive confession by a former temple sanitation worker claiming to have buried over 500 bodies, the MP says the local police cannot be trusted to ensure a fair investigation. He warns that continuing administrative silence threatens not just justice but also the spiritual sanctity of Dharmasthala.

Gruesome allegations
The case traces back to the former sanitation worker's chilling six-page complaint submitted to Dakshina Kannada District Police Chief Arun K on July 3.

The complainant, whose identity is withheld and who's given witness protection by the court, told police that as a sanitation worker employed by the temple, he was responsible for routine cleaning near the Nethravathi river from 1995 to 2014.

During the period, temple officials -- whom he did not name in the complaint but later told the judicial magistrate who took his statement -- threatened and coerced him to dispose of hundreds of bodies, many of which bore signs of sexual assault, strangulation, or acid burns.

"I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received, and the pain of beatings - that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them," the complainant wrote.

He described being beaten and threatened after refusing to dispose of the bodies, and eventually forced into silence and compliance under the threat of murder. The complaint includes accounts of unnamed minor girls found raped and strangled, including one in a school uniform, buried with her school bag; acid-burned bodies, some covered in newspapers and burned to eliminate evidence; poor men tied to chairs and suffocated and murdered with towels in front of him; corpses burned with diesel or buried in forest locations on oral instructions from temple-linked supervisors.

The complainant said he fled Dharmasthala in December 2014 after a relative was sexually assaulted. He claims to have been in hiding in a neighbouring state ever since, living in fear of retribution.

Skeleton as evidence
As evidence, the complainant exhumed a skeleton from one of the burial sites and submitted both the remains and photographs along with the complaint. He expressed readiness to guide investigators to multiple burial locations across Dharmasthala. "My conscience no longer allows silence. I must speak," the complaint concluded, urging for the proper exhumation and dignified cremation of the "hundreds" of remains still buried.

Old allegations against temple leaders resurface
In November 2021, during a protest meeting, activist Mahesh Shetty Thimarody urged the Karnataka state government to order a CBI inquiry into 462 unnatural deaths that have occurred in Dharmasthala in the last 10 years. Members of several families whose relatives went missing spoke at the meeting.

In 2012, Soujanya, a 17-year-old student, was raped and killed in Dharmasthala. The lone accused, a mentally ill man, presented by temple officials, was acquitted in 2023, said the CPI MP Sandosh Kumar.

Though the courts pulled up the forensic surgeon who did the autopsy and the police for shoddy investigation, the MP said that the acquittal committee, which should review the officers, is almost dysfunctional.

In 1979, a schoolteacher named Vedavalli was burnt alive in her bathroom after legally winning a promotion that some influential forces allegedly opposed. In 1986, Padmalatha, a young PU student and daughter of a local Communist leader, was kidnapped and later found naked and lifeless in the Netravathi River-seemingly punished for her father's political stand, the MP said..

In 2012, two siblings -- Narayan and Yamuna -- were murdered in their home, just metres from the KSRTC bus stand. They had reportedly resisted pressure to vacate their land. Their house was razed soon after and replaced by a commercial building, said the MP in his letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

After the sanitation worker's complaint, Sujatha Bhat (60), a former stenographer of CBI, approached the Dakshina Kannada police again seeking investigation into her missing daughter Ananya Bhat.

Ananya, then a first-year MBBS student in Manipal, went missing during a visit to Dharmasthala Temple in 2003.

After being informed of her disappearance, Sujatha travelled from Kolkata to Dharmasthala, only to face outright refusal by the Belthangady Police Station to register her complaint. Residents near the temple told her they had seen temple staff escorting a young woman matching Ananya’s description. When Sujatha approached the temple's influential Dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade, and his brother Harshendra Kumar, they allegedly refused to help her, she said in her new complaint.

That night, four temple staff allegedly lured her into a room under the pretext of giving information on her daughter, tied her up, assaulted her, and left her unconscious, it said. She awoke months later in a hospital in Bengaluru with no memory of how she arrived there and without any of her belongings.

Sujatha said she believed her daughter may be among the many women allegedly buried secretly around Dharmasthala.

Temple welcomes SIT probe
Seventeen days after the former sanitation worker filed his explosive complaint, his employer, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, welcomed the SIT investigation on Sunday, July 20.

In a statement, the temple's K Parshwanath Jain "strongly urges the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light".

Gag order challenged
Meanwhile, a YouTube channel has moved the Supreme Court seeking to restrain Dharmasthala temple administrators from filing defamation suits within Karnataka. The petition also challenges an ex-parte order by a Bengaluru City Civil Court that directed the removal of 8,842 online links related to the mass burial allegations.

The order was passed in a defamation suit filed by Harshendra Kumar D, who heads the Dharmasthala temple administration.

In its plea, the YouTube channel Third Eye has urged the apex court to quash the civil court’s gag order and requested that any future defamation cases against it be filed only in courts outside Karnataka. It argues that repeated defamation suits in the state amount to abuse of legal process and hinder a fair hearing.