Dharmasthala case: SIT files charge sheet in court against six persons

Mangaluru (Karnataka), Nov 20 (PTI) The SIT probing into allegations of "multiple murders, rapes and burials" in the temple town of Dharmasthala, on Thursday submitted the charge sheet before a court in Dakshina Kannada district, police sources said.

The Special Investigation Team submitted the report to the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Beltangady, which is said to have about 3,900-pages, under Section 215 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), naming six persons as accused, they said.

Mahesh Shetty Timarodi, Girish Mattannavar, T Jayanth, Vittal Gowda -- activists who had earlier backed the registration of the FIR in the case -- also Sujatha Bhat and one more person (reportedly complainant Chinnaiah), have been named as the accused, police sources said.

A controversy erupted after a complainant, later identified as C N Chinnaiah and arrested on charges of perjury, claimed burying a number of bodies, including those of women with signs of sexual assault, in Dharmasthala over a period of past two decades, with the implications pointing towards the administrators of the local temple.

The SIT, formed by the state government, which is probing charges, has conducted excavations at multiple locations identified by the complainant in the forested areas along the banks of the Netravathi River in Dharmasthala, where some skeletal remains were found at two sites.

Later, the SIT recently again recovered some skeletal remains during a search operation in the Banglegudde forest area near the Nethravathi bathing ghat. PTI COR KSU KH