Latest news with #Dharmasthala
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
Rape, murder and secret burials: Temple worker's chilling confession shakes holy town
A temple town, a mystery whistleblower and a chilling confession: allegations of rape, murder and the secret burial of hundreds of women and girls over two decades have shocked the quiet holy town of Dharmasthala in southern India 's Karnataka. His face hidden behind a black hood, a whistleblower appeared before a local court earlier this month carrying skeletal remains that he claimed were taken from a mass burial site of sexual assault victims. The man claimed to be a former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple and alleged he was forced into secretly disposing of hundreds of bodies, many of which showed signs of brutal violence and sexual assault. In a written complaint to the police chief of Dakshina Kannada district, the man, whose identity is being withheld for his safety, said he worked under duress for nearly 20 years before fleeing into hiding with his family in 2014. Driven by guilt, remorse and haunting nightmares, he had returned after more than a decade to expose the 'horrific crimes' he allegedly witnessed during his time working at the temple. According to his testimony and redacted complaint seen by The Independent, the alleged rape, torture and murder of girls and women and the disposal of their remains occurred between 1995 and 2014. The whistleblower demanded exhumation of the hundreds of corpses he claimed to have buried and an investigation so that justice could be ensured for the victims 'who were denied dignity even in death'. His lawyer, KV Dhananjay, told The Independent this was an 'unprecedented' case where the witness had come forward not only with his testimony but also evidence, demanding accountability. 'Here is the individual who says that it is not the fear of law but the fear of conscience and fear for morality that has brought him back,' Dhananjay said. 'In the last 100 years of court judgments, you don't find a parallel.' The emergence of a whistleblower has put the spotlight on hundreds of cases of women and girls who were found dead or reported missing in and around Dharmasthala over the years, many of which were ignored or not formally investigated by police. Nearly two weeks after the man filed his complaint, Karnataka's state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the allegations. Nestled in the lush Western Ghats on the banks of the Nethravathi river, Dharmasthala is a major Hindu pilgrimage site. The medieval Shri Manjunatha Temple, dedicated to the deity Shiva and managed by a family, attracts millions of devotees to the small town every year. The whistleblower said he was from the Dalit community, the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system, and worked at the Shri Manjunatha Temple from 1995 to 2014. 'What began as regular employment later turned into work of covering up evidence of extremely horrific crimes,' he alleged. He fled in 2014 when 'the mental torture I was experiencing became unbearable'. The tipping point came after a young girl was sexually harassed, he alleged, prompting him to run away. He and his family went into hiding in a neighbouring state, he claimed, constantly changing residences for fear of their lives. In a chilling first-person account, the man said he found corpses wash up on the riverbank and assumed they were suicides or accidental drownings. But he soon noticed that most of them were women, and many were naked or semi-naked and showed signs of violence. It was in 1998 when he was first asked to "secretly dispose of the bodies", he alleged. When he refused, he was allegedly beaten and threatened. 'We will cut you into pieces. Your body will also be buried like the other corpses. We will sacrifice all your family members,' he alleged he was told. He claimed that many of the victims he ended up burying in secret were minor girls and women subjected to brutal sexual violence. They bore torn clothes, acid burns, and other injuries. In a particularly distressing case in 2010, the man said he was ordered to bury a girl he estimated was 12 to 15 years old. 'She was still wearing her school uniform shirt but other garments were missing. She had a school bag. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,' the whistleblower said in his testimony. 'They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.' He also claimed that destitute men were murdered at Dharmasthala and similarly buried. The man alleges that he was a witness to these murders. According to the lawyer, the corpses were not buried in designated cemeteries but on open lands. 'These were not organised interments sanctioned by any authority but random burials, hidden and illegal,' he said. The whistleblower said he kept silent for years out of fear but the 'insurmountable sense of guilt' and recurring nightmares became too much to bear. 'I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses that I received and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them,' he said. Dhananjay said the whistleblower's claims described a place where 'ordinary laws just don't work at all'. 'Now if it is true, one must assume that if somebody goes missing in such a place, the police are simply not going to record it,' he said. 'But just because we are unable to explain the past, the rocks should not blind us to the present.' The lawyer said the whistleblower took matters into his own hands because he expected little from police. 'Before coming to us, he went to one such burial site, exhumed the remains, and handed them over to the court,' he said. 'So now, the court has half the picture. The other half is for police to take him to the site where the recovery was made. They have not done that either. This man was not wanted. There were no pending investigations against him. No one was even looking for these bodies. By not acting, police are sending a message to the world – that this man may be telling the truth.' In a statement issued on Sunday 20 July, the temple authorities said they support a 'fair and transparent' investigation. 'Truth and belief form the foundation of a society's ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light,' said K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala. The whistleblower hasn't named any of the people he claims are responsible. He has sought protection from the court first, saying he will disclose more details once he and his family receive proper protection. Should anything happen to him before he is able to reveal the names, he has said, Dhananjay will open a sealed version of his full testimony. 'The truth about these tragedies must not die with me,' he said in his testimony. Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary told The Independent that the appointment of a Special Investigation Team was a 'significant step'. She referenced the anguish of families still waiting for answers. 'An old woman is still hoping to recover the remains of her daughter just so she can perform her last rites,' she said. 'That's why I wrote to the Karnataka government, and within four or five days they constituted the SIT.' If you are a child and you need help because something has happened to you, you can call Childline free of charge on 0800 1111. You can also call the NSPCC if you are an adult and you are worried about a child, on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adults on 0808 801 0331.
Hans India
6 days ago
- Politics
- Hans India
Dharmasthala burial case: Court restrains media from carrying defamatory content
Bengaluru: A Bengaluru court has issued a restraining order against multiple media houses and YouTube channels, barring them from sharing defamatory content against Harshendra Kumar D, brother of Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade, in connection with the alleged burial of bodies at Dharmasthala. The order follows a defamation suit filed by the Secretary of Sri Manjunathaswamy Temple, after media reports surfaced citing allegations by a sanitation worker that he was forced by temple supervisors to bury several bodies. The worker, however, did not name Kumar or his family. X Additional City Civil & Sessions Judge Vijaya Kumar Rai noted the potential reputational harm and stated that such allegations, even if false, could severely impact the temple, its institutions, and students. '...when an allegation is made against the institution, and temple, it affects a wider range of people including the employees and students who are studying in various colleges and schools. Therefore, even a single false and defamatory publication would seriously affect the functioning of the institutions,' the order stated. The court also directed the removal or de-indexing of defamatory content already online. Kumar submitted a list of 8,842 defamatory links, including thousands of YouTube videos, Facebook and Instagram posts, news articles, and social media posts. He argued that no FIR named him or the temple's institutions, and one prior case had resulted in acquittal. Emphasising the need to balance free speech with protection from defamation, the court stated this was an exceptional case of baseless allegations. A John Doe order was also passed to cover unidentified individuals. The matter is set to be heard next on August 5.
Al Jazeera
7 days ago
- Al Jazeera
How an Indian temple town is at the centre of hundreds of alleged murders
New Delhi, India – After spending three decades racked with guilt, scared on sleepless nights, and often changing cities, a 48-year-old Dalit man appeared in Karnataka with information about one of the most horrific alleged crimes in India. Emerging from hiding after 12 years, the man, who once worked as a sanitation worker at the much-revered Dharmasthala temple, told police on July 3 that he was coming forward with 'an extremely heavy heart and to recover from an insurmountable sense of guilt'. As a court-protected witness, the man's identity cannot be revealed under the law. 'I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received,' he said in his statement, reviewed by Al Jazeera, 'and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them'. Now, the whistleblower wants to help in the exhumation of 'hundreds of dead bodies' he buried between 1995 and 2014 – many of them women and girls, allegedly murdered after sexual assaults, but also destitute men whose murders he claims to have witnessed. After days of sustained pressure from activists and public outcry, the Karnataka government – ruled by the opposition Congress party – has created a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations of assault and murder. So, what did the protected witness reveal in his complaint? Does the temple town have a history of rape and murder? Are more victims coming forward now? Men serve food to pilgrims at the Dharmasthala temple [] 'Hundreds of bodies': What's in the complaint? Situated on the scenic lower slopes of the Western Ghats, Dharmasthala, an 800-year-old pilgrimage village, is located on the banks of the Nethravathi River in the Belthangady area of the Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka state, where nearly 2,000 devotees visit daily. On July 11, the man, fully draped in black clothing with only a transparent strip covering his eyes, appeared at a local court in Belthangady to record his statement. The complainant, who belongs to the Dalit community – the least privileged and often persecuted group in India's complex caste hierarchy – joined the temple in 1995 as a sanitation worker. At the beginning of his employment, he said in the complaint, he noticed dead bodies appearing near the river. 'Many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments. Some corpses showed clear signs of sexual assault and violence; injuries or strangulation marks indicating violence were visible on those bodies,' he noted. However, instead of reporting this to authorities at the time, the man said he was forced to 'dispose of these bodies' after his supervisors beat him up and threatened him, saying, 'We will cut you into pieces; we will sacrifice all your family members.' The supervisors, he claimed, would call him to specific locations where there were dead bodies. 'Many times, these bodies were of minor girls. The absence of undergarments, torn clothes, and injuries to their private parts indicated brutal sexual assault on them,' he said. 'Some bodies also had acid burn marks.' The man has told the police and the court that he is ready to undergo any tests, including brain-mapping and a polygraph, and is willing to identify the spots of mass burials. Some sites are likely to be exhumed in the coming days. In the nearly 20 years he worked at the temple, the man said he 'buried dead bodies in several locations throughout the Dharmasthala area'. Sometimes, as instructed, he burned dead bodies using diesel. 'They would instruct me to burn them completely so that no trace would be found. The dead bodies disposed of in this manner numbered in the hundreds,' he said. Why did he go into hiding? By 2014, having worked there for 20 years, he said, 'The mental torture I was experiencing had become unbearable.' Then, a girl from his own family was sexually harassed by a person connected to the supervisors at the temple, leading to a realisation that the family needed 'to escape from there immediately'. In December 2014, he fled Dharmasthala with his family and informed no one of his whereabouts. Since then, the family has been living in hiding in a neighbouring state, and changing residences, he said. 'However, I am still living under the burden of guilt that does not subside,' he said. 'But my conscience no longer allows me to continue this silence.' To back his claims, the man recently visited a burial site and exhumed a skeleton; he submitted the skeleton and its photograph during exhumation to the police and the court via his lawyers. Today, the actual number of dead bodies is not what matters to the former sanitation worker, a person closely associated with the case told Al Jazeera. They requested anonymity to speak. 'Even if it was just two or three women, and not hundreds, their lives matter,' they said, reflecting on why the whistleblower came forward. 'If there is a chance at justice, their bodies getting proper rituals, we want to take it.' A pilgrim stands near an elephant at the Dharmasthala temple [] Did he identify the victims? No, he did not identify them by name. However, he detailed some of the burials in his statement to the police. He recalled that in 2010 he was sent to a location about 500 metres (1,640ft) from a petrol pump in Kalleri, nearly 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Dharmasthala. There, he found the body of a teenage girl. 'Her age could be estimated between 12 to 15 years. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. However, her skirt and undergarments were missing. Her body showed clear signs of sexual assault. There were strangulation marks on her neck,' he noted in his statement. 'They instructed me to dig a pit and bury her along with her school bag. That scene remains disturbing to this day.' He detailed another 'disturbing incident' of burying a woman's body in her 20s. 'Her face had been burned with acid. That body was covered with a newspaper. Instead of burying her body, the supervisors instructed me to collect her footwear and all her belongings and burn them with her,' he recalled. Yes. There have been repeated protests over the years regarding the discovery of bodies of rape-and-murder victims in and around Dharmasthala, dating back to the 1980s. These protests have been sporadic but persistent, often led by local groups, families and political organisations. In 1987, marches were organised in the town to protest the rape and murder of 17-year-old Padmalata. The demonstrations exposed alleged cover-ups by influential figures but were reportedly quashed through intimidation and legal pressure. The town saw protests flare again in 2012 with the 'Justice for Sowjanya' movement, after another teenager was raped and murdered. That case remains unsolved. Over the decades, families and local political groups have held demonstrations and submitted memorandums to authorities, linking cases such as the 2003 disappearance of medical student Ananya Bhat to larger allegations of mass graves and unnatural deaths. S Balan, a senior lawyer in the Karnataka High Court and a human rights activist, told Al Jazeera that the killings and mysterious disappearances in Dharmasthala date back to 1979. 'The souls of young girls are crying for justice; hundreds of girls who disappeared were abducted, were raped, and were killed,' Balan told Al Jazeera. 'India has never seen this gravity of offence in its republic after independence.' Balan also met the Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah last Wednesday with a delegation of lawyers, urging him to form the SIT to probe the alleged mass rapes and murders. 'The chief minister was serious about it. He told us that he will talk to the police and do [what's needed],' said Balan. The administration of the Dharmasthala temple has long been controlled by the powerful Heggade family, with Veerendra Heggade serving as the 21st Dharmadhikari, or hereditary head, since 1968. Heggade, a recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, is a member of the parliament's upper house. He was nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022. His family wields significant influence in the region, overseeing a wide network of institutions. In 2012, the family came under public scrutiny following the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya, a resident of Dharmasthala. Her body was discovered in a wooded area bearing signs of sexual assault and brutal violence. Sowjanya's family has consistently alleged that the perpetrators had ties to the temple's leadership. In a statement shared on Sunday, July 20, the temple authorities expressed support for a 'fair and transparent' investigation and expressed hope that the investigation would uncover the truth. K Parshwanath Jain, the official spokesperson for Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, said the whistleblower's complaint has 'triggered widespread public debate and confusion across the country'. 'In light of public demand for accountability, we understand that the state government has handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team,' he said. 'Truth and belief form the foundation of a society's ethics and values. We sincerely hope and strongly urge the SIT to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and bring the true facts to light.' Veerendra Heggade, head of the Dharmasthala temple, stands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on August 31, 2016 [Handout, Prime Minister's office] Have the families of missing people come forward? Yes. Sujatha Bhat, the mother of Ananya Bhat, who disappeared in 2003, has responded publicly to the whistleblower's shocking revelations about alleged mass burials in Dharmasthala. The 60-year-old retired CBI stenographer said she has lived in fear for more than two decades but was motivated by media reports of the worker's testimony and the discovery of skeletal remains. She filed a new complaint with the police last Tuesday. Bhat said she believes her daughter may have been among the many women who faced abuse and met a violent end, only to be buried without a trace. She recalled that she was discouraged from pursuing the case further. 'They told us to stop asking questions,' she reportedly said, emphasising the climate of fear and silence that surrounded Dharmasthala for decades. Speaking with reporters after filing the complaint, Bhat appealed: 'Please find my daughter's skeletal remains and allow me to perform the funeral rites with honour.' She said she wants to 'give peace to Ananya's soul, and let me spend my final days in peace'. Source: Al Jazeera
South China Morning Post
7 days ago
- South China Morning Post
Mass grave scandal, cover-up claims rock southern Indian state
The government in India 's southern state of Karnataka has started a special investigation into allegations of a mass burial at Dharmasthala, a major pilgrimage centre, following a confession by a former sanitation worker that has sent shock waves across the country. In a formal complaint to police dated July 3 – a copy of which has been seen by This Week in Asia – the worker revealed that between 1998 and 2014, he was allegedly instructed to bury 'hundreds of bodies' of women and children. Some of the victims, he claimed, had been raped. 'Many of the female bodies were without clothing or underwear. Some bore clear signs of sexual assault and violence: wounds or strangulation that indicated violence,' the complaint stated. The 48-year-old sanitation worker, who belongs to the marginalised Dalit community, said he was coerced by some 'influential people' into performing the burials to protect himself and his family. On July 19, the Karnataka government formed a special investigation team (SIT) amid demands from several sections of society. The latest allegation has brought the spotlight back on previous cases, mostly involving young girls and linked to Dharmasthala, one of which was the missing daughter of former stenographer Sujatha Bhat.
NDTV
21-07-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Plea In Supreme Court Against Bengaluru Civil Court's "Gag" Order In Dharmasthala Case
New Delhi: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging a Bengaluru civil court's order restraining the media from sharing "defamatory" content against the brother of Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade. The petition - filed by Third Eye YouTube Channel - in the top court termed the civil court order "unprecedented and profoundly alarming". "It is a frontal assault on the freedom of speech and press (Article 19(1)(a)) and the foundational principles of natural justice and due process (Article 21)," the petition stated. It was filed a day after the Karnataka government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the claims that hundreds of women and girls were allegedly murdered in Dharmasthala - one of the major Hindu pilgrimage centres in Karnataka. The petition arose out of an order by the Bengaluru court on a plea by Harshendra Kumar D, the brother of Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade. It said that media reporting proved to be a public service in this case, as an SIT was formed, noting the coverage of the case by the media. It pointed out that the whistleblower's original complaint, which forms the basis of the FIR, explicitly alleges that "supervisors" and the "Dharmasthala temple administration" threatened him with death and forced him into burying and burning hundreds of bodies. "As core figures within this very administration, the plaintiffs are directly implicated in the scope and direction of this grave criminal investigation," the plea added. The plea also argued that there are direct allegations against them in one Sujatha's complaint for her missing girl-child: "A subsequent, pivotal complaint filed by Smt. Sujatha directly and tragically names both Sri Harshendra Kumar and Dr D Veerendra Heggade. She alleges their personal involvement in verbal abuse, refusing to register her daughter's 2003 disappearance from Dharmasthala, and orchestrating a physical assault against her when she sought answers from the temple authorities." "Crucially, the media's reporting on these chilling allegations was not a malicious act, but a vital public service," it added. The plea argued that the initial FIR (July 4) did not immediately lead to comprehensive state intervention. "It was the sustained media coverage of crime that specifically prompted Smt. Sujatha's complaint (July 15), which explicitly stated that she came forward because she saw the media's coverage. " This irrefutably demonstrates the essential role of a free press in uncovering hidden truths and providing a voice to long-silenced individuals, the plea stated. Along with the removal of the media "gag", the plea further sought an order from the top court that any future defamation case by Harshendra Kumar D and his brother Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade should be heard outside the state, as they are "influential". "Shri Harshendra Kumar serves as executive co-ordinator of Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala and the secretary of its affiliated educational and social organisations. His elder brother, Dr D Veerendra Heggade, is the Dharmadhikari of the temple. Due to these roles, they exercise considerable influence regionally and beyond." The plea read. The petition has argued that the gag order protects those who are directly implicated by the mother of a missing girl. "This order, secured through a calculated abuse of judicial process and material misrepresentation by the plaintiffs, directly obstructs a high-level state criminal investigation into allegations of mass burials and serious crimes linked to the influential Dharmasthala temple," it said, The petition claimed that Sri Harshendra Kumar D held significant positions of authority within the Dharmasthala temple administration and its vast network of associated institutions. The Bengaluru civil court has granted an ex parte injunction to delete or de-index a staggering 8,842 links on the coverage of the allegations made by a sanitation worker that he has buried several bodies in Dharmasthala. These links include coverage by newspapers, TV channels, websites and YouTubers. Several tweets, Facebook posts and Reddit threads by individuals, too, have been mentioned in the petition.
