What's the Dharmasthala ‘mass murder' controversy that's led to a probe in Karnataka

The Print

10-07-2025

In a complaint filed with Dakshina Kannada police on 3 July, he described some of the bodies he had to deal with—that of a teenage girl in her school shirt with signs of sexual assault and strangulation marks on the neck, and a woman with face burnt with acid.
The Dalit man joined the revered Dharmasthala temple, one of the holiest Hindu places of worship in the state, in 1995 and fled to an undisclosed location in a neighbouring state in 2014 because he could no longer take the 'mental torture' of having to bury whom he believed were victims of heinous offences.
Bengaluru: A former sanitation worker in Karnataka's Dharmasthala has claimed he was forced to bury the bodies of 'hundreds' of women and girls he suspected to be victims of rape and murder, sparking outrage and anger in the state and demand for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to order a comprehensive probe.
'Many of the female bodies were found without clothing or underwear. Some bore clear signs of sexual assault and violence, and the bodies had wounds that appeared to be of strangulation,' he said in his complaint.
Not only women, he claims, destitute men too were tied to a chair, tortured and killed in front of him. 'By 2014, the mental torture I was experiencing was unbearable. When a girl in my family was also sexually abused by a person in contact with the supervisors, we all knew we had to get out there immediately,' he claimed.
Terrified at the prospects of having to do to one of his own what he was forced to do with the bodies of strangers, the man fled the place. 'I left Dharmasthala at night 11 years ago (and) I took my small family with me. I hid in a state of darkness. Despite being far from Dharmasthala, the certainty that my family and I would be killed at any moment, like those before, haunted us daily,' the man said in his complaint to the police.
Without naming them, he also claimed the accused are related to the administration of Dharmasthala. 'Some of the people are very influential and have a tendency to eliminate those who oppose them,' he said in the complaint. He said he would reveal the names if he is granted police protection. An FIR has been filed at the Dharmasthala police station.
A Dakshina Kannada-based rights group Wednesday approached CM Siddaramaiah, demanding an investigation into these startling revelations. T.K. Jayanth, the state president of NEETHI, listed six main demands. 'A situation must be created where this important investigation can be conducted at length, without fear, and without political or any other pressures, under direct supervision of Dr. Arun K. (superintendent of police).'
ThePrint reached Dakshina Kannada SP Arun K. via calls for comment. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Jayanth also demanded the superintendent of police should not be transferred midway during the investigation. He said the probe should be carried out in a transparent manner and a helpline should be set up to allow family members of those who were either murdered or went missing in and around Dharmasthala, about 294 km from Bengaluru.
The Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala is a revered place of worship. But it has also had a fair share of controversies with serious allegations levelled at its Dharmadhikari (temple head) Dr D. Veerendra Heggade, a Rajya Sabha MP and also Padma Vibushan awardee.
The family members of Soujanya, who was killed in 2012 when he was 17 and a pre-university student at Heggade's SDM College, claim the Dharmadhikari's family members were involved in the murder. The charges have not been proven as the case remains unresolved to this day.
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The complaint
Grappling with an unresolved sense of guilt even 11 years after he left Dharmasthala, the former sanitation worker filed the police complaint. He has told the police he can show them where the bodies have been buried, and demanded they be exhumed.
In a statement released by two lawyers on his behalf, the man made chilling claims about what allegedly transpired when he worked at Dharmasthala between 1995 and 2014.
The statement said the man started as a sanitation worker and was tasked with cleaning areas near the Nethravathi river that flows near the temple. But he soon found himself doing the dreadful work which involved concealing evidence of the most heinous of crimes.
He claimed that right from his early days at work, he started noticing bodies—majority of them of women—which he then thought were of the victims of suicides or accidental deaths.
He also said his supervisors would call him at specific locations where the bodies were.
He said that in several cases, he would notice the deceased women's private parts badly bruised, raising suspicions they might be victims of brutal sexual assault rather than accident or suicide.
He narrated a 2010 incident when he was asked to go about 500 metres from a fuel station in Kalleri. 'There I found the body of a teenage girl who was between 12-15 years of age. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. Her body bore signs of sexual assault and had strangulation marks around her neck. I was directed to dig a hole and bury her with her schoolbag.'
He recalled another incident in which an about 20-year-old woman's face was burnt with acid and his supervisors asked him to burn the body.
After fleeing in 2014, he went into hiding in a neighbouring state and assumed a new identity.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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