Pathanamthitta: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the gold theft at Sabarimala, arrested former Sabarimala Executive Officer D Sudheesh Kumar on Saturday for allegedly colluding with other Devaswom officials to handover the door frames and gold-cladded panels of dwarapalaka idols for gold plating in 2019. 

This is the third arrest in the case. SIT had earlier arrested the key accused, Unnikrishnan Potty, and former administrative officer, Murari Babu. Sudheesh Kumar is an accused in two cases registered by the SIT as part of the probe.

Sudheesh Kumar was summoned for questioning on Friday and his arrest was recorded on Saturday following interrogation. He was produced in the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Ranni. 

The probe by the Devaswom Vigilance and the SIT showed that Sudheesh Kumar and  Murari Babu recommended handing over panels to Potty and marked it as copper plates in all the official records in 2019, despite the fact that they were fully aware of the gold-plating done by UB group in 1998-99, as they had entered service in the Travancore Devaswom board before 1998 and had served at Sabarimala. 

It was Sudheesh Kumar who forwarded a recommendation letter to the TDB commissioner in June 2019 to handover the panels to Potty. Both of them intentionally marked the plates as copper sheets when they knew that the panels had been gold-plated earlier, investigation has revealed.

The SIT probe report also showed that the irregular entrustment of the gold-cladded dwarapalakas and peedam to Unnikrishnan Potty was done without following any prescribed procedure in July 2019. The procedural lapses continued until the refixation of the dwarapalakas in September 2019.

The investigation revealed that only a perfunctory mahazar was prepared and that none of the relevant particulars were entered in the registers. 

The SIT report submitted to the court noted that the Devaswom officials, including Sudheesh Kumar, despite being fully aware of the glaring irregularities and the possibility that the gold plates had been substituted, wilfully chose to remain silent, thereby concealing the misconduct of both the officials and the sponsor.