For a long time the powerful Manjunatha temple of Dharmasthala has been at the centre of crimes and controversies. In the first week of July a former sanitation worker from the temple emerged from hiding after 12 years, revealing how he was forced to bury “hundreds of dead bodies” between 1998 and 2014. Most of them were women and girls, murdered after being sexually assaulted. His superiors would beat him up forcing him to commit these acts. Fearing for his life, he shifted to a neighbouring state with his family. As proof, he exhumed a skeleton and submitted it to the court.
Given the influence the Heggade Dharmadhikaris exercise, there was very little effort from the Congress government to pursue the matter. After outrage from civil society across and beyond Karnataka, the government formed a Special Investigation Team. There is also a demand for an SIT probe into the Sowjanya rape and murder case (2012). As of now, the investigation is hampered by the inclement weather causing seepage of water in the burial sites. In the meantime, the Dharmasthala temple authority has obtained a gag-order on relevant media reports in an effort to hush-up the matter.
