Dharmasthala case: Complainant-witness under SIT custody till September 6

Mangaluru: The 45-year-old complainant-witness in the alleged Dharmasthala mass burial case was remanded in the custody of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) up to September 6 by the JMFC Court in Belthangady on Wednesday.

The complainant witness, who was arrested by the SIT for giving false information on August 22, was produced before the JMFC court after the end of 12-day police custody.

The complainant-witness, who had submitted skeletal remains claiming to have exhumed them from a burial site in Dharmasthala, had failed to reveal the exact location of the skull to the SIT officials.

After the skeletal remains were identified as belonging to a male, the complainant-witness had confessed to the SIT that they were not exhumed from the site of mass burials, sources in the SIT said.

The SIT had initially arrested the complainant-witness for perjury under section 229 (punishment for false evidence) of BNS.

The SIT, after securing his custody for 12 days from the JMFC court in Belthangady on August 23, had recorded his statements on the skeletal remains in his possession, the sources said.

The SIT officials also collected information about the places where he had sought shelter before filing a complaint. 

The SIT officials accompanied the complainant-witness houses of activist Mahesh Shetty Thimarodi and his brother Mohan Shetty, near Ujire, another complainant Jayanth T’s rented house in Peenya, a service apartment in Vidyaranyapura in Bengaluru, a resort on Ujire-Charmady Road, among others and conducted the mahajar process.

Sources in the SIT said that after the mahajar process sections 227 (giving false evidence), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 230 (fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence), 231 (fabricating evidence with intent to procure conviction of life imprisonment), 236 (false declaration), 240 (giving false information), 248 (false charge), and 336 (forgery) of  BNS were added in the FIR registered against him.

The JMFC Court upheld the arguments of the public prosecutor appearing on behalf of SIT and extended the custody up to September 6, informed sources in SIT.