SIT team can be seen with other officials during the exhumation operation before the arrest of Chinnayya
Dharmasthala Crimes: SIT begins digging, no trace of body in first spot
Bengaluru
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Dharmasthala mass burial case has started digging the graves. A highly placed source said that in the first spot marked by the probing team the police did not find any bodies.
A team of more than dozen workers have been pressed into action to dig the ground. The team dug the first spot for about five feet and reportedly found nothing. Initially sources said that team may have found an ATM and Pan card. However, Blrpost.com’s independent verification reveal that no such items were found.
The SIT has also summoned JCB to do excavation and are now looking into second and the third spot. The SIT sources say that this exercise may go on for days and the team is willing go anywhere the complainant shows.
The SIT had first recorded the statements of the complainant on Saturday and Sunday before taking him to the locations he directed on Monday. The team did spot mahajar and marked 15 spots on the same day.
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It should be noted that the Karnataka government constituted the SIT team headed by Director General of Police, Pronab Mohanty on July 19. The SIT, after finalising a team of 20 persons, began the probe.
It may be recalled that the complainant filed a report at the Dharmasthala police station on July 3, alleging that he was coerced into burying bodies. A First Information Report (FIR) was registered on July 4. His legal counsel demanded the formation of an SIT led by Mohanty, and the government constituted the team on July 19. The 20-member team is now working tirelessly to uncover the truth.
The complainant, who joined the Dharmasthala Temple Institution as a sanitation worker in 1995 and worked in various service departments until 2014, has exposed a disturbing pattern of mass burials—often involving women, children, and vulnerable men. According to him, many of the deceased were not merely unclaimed or unknown, but victims of heinous crimes, concealed under the institution’s sacred image.