Dharmasthala mass burials: Karnataka sets up SIT to probe allegations

The allegations came to the fore in July when an unidentified person appeared before the police and lodged a complaint that he was a sanitation worker and between 1995 and 2014, he was forced to bury bodies.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe allegations of mass burials in Dharmasthala, a temple town in the Dakshina Kannada district.

According to a government order dated July 19, Pronab Mohanty, Director General of Police (Internal Security Division), has been appointed to head the SIT.

He will be assisted by Deputy Inspector General of Police (Recruitment) MN Anucheth, and IPS officers Soumyalatha SK and Jitendra Kumar Dayama.

The SIT was formed following a petition from the Karnataka State Commission for Women, which sought an investigation into "unnatural deaths, missing cases and sexual assault cases linked to women and female students in the last 20 years in Dharmasthala following media reports and the emergence of a witness".

The allegations first surfaced in early July.

A sanitation worker — whose identity has not been revealed — stated in a police complaint that he was forced to bury bodies, including those of women and minors, in Dharmasthala between 1995 and 2014. He alleged that some of the bodies showed signs of sexual assault. He also gave a statement to a local court.

Following this, another woman filed a police complaint, claiming that her daughter, an MBBS student, who had gone missing in 2003, was one of the victims.

The government order stated all related cases in Dharmasthala and any other such cases registered anywhere else in the state and connected to this incident would be automatically transferred to the SIT. The team has been directed to make use of the Dakshina Kannada police's resources.

The SIT will also periodically update MA Saleem, the Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP) and the Head of Police Force (HoPF).

Sources in the Dharmasthala police, where the cases were registered, confirmed that case files would soon be handed over to the SIT.

However, Home Minister G Parameshwara clarified that the SIT would not investigate the infamous Soujanya murder case.

Soujanya, a 17-year-old college student, was abducted, raped and murdered in Dharmasthala in 2012. The case remains unsolved.

Parameshwara told reporters in Bengaluru on Sunday: "The SIT will conduct the investigation and submit its final report to the DG&IGP. We waited for the preliminary inquiry to conclude before forming the SIT. There's no question of acting under pressure or hiding anything. Let’s wait and see what the probe reveals."

The SIT's composition is noteworthy.

While Mohanty has vast experience and heads the ISD, Anucheth previously led the investigating team that had cracked the sensational murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. Soumyalatha was part of the SIT probing rape and other allegations against BJP MLA Munirathna.