The complainant's legal team is now mulling over approaching the High Court of Karnataka and the Supreme Court to ensure the man and his family's safety.
Published Jul 17, 2025 | 12:35 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 17, 2025 | 12:35 PM
Ex-worker alleged murders, rapes, and secret burials tied to Dharmasthala Temple administration.
Synopsis: The Dharmasthala mass murder and burial case has taken a curious turn with the confidential statement of the complainant-witness surfacing on the YouTube channel of an unrelated individual. Though the whistleblower has been granted protection under the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, the YouTuber claimed that he received the information from the police.
The legal team representing a former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala Manjunatha Temple in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district is contemplating approaching the high court and Supreme Court after the details of the man’s confidential statement in the mass burial case to the police surfaced on a YouTube video.
The man, Mr V, had alleged a 20-year cover-up of murders and sexual assaults, and his request for protection under the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, had been granted. Still, the video appeared on the YouTube channel of an individual, unrelated to the case. The YouTuber claimed that he got it from the police.
Mr V accused the investigators of a breach of confidentiality after his statement, recorded on 14 July, went public.
A complaint lodged through his lawyers said Mr V was shocked to find details of his confidential police statement revealed to an unrelated YouTuber. The lawyers said the breached compromised Mr V’s safety and the investigation.
Despite making a legal complaint, no action has been initiated, they said.
Indications are that the Mr V’s approved witness protection might be withdrawn, prompting the legal team to contemplate moving the high court and the Supreme Court.
The lawyers demanded an urgent, high-level inquiry into the ‘leak’, and immediate invention by competent authorities.
Repeated calls to the Superintendent of Police in Dakshina Kannada went unanswered.
In a separate but related development, one of the lawyers in Mr V’s legal team, urged Kerala to pass a resolution in its legislative Assembly, demanding an investigation to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and competence.
In a statement issued to the media on Wednesday, 16 July, Advocate KV Dhananjay demanded the resolution in the mass burial case, “for reasons that could become evident soon but which might already be known to the Kerala government”.
The resolution, he said, should also demand to include the Kerala police in the probe, for which the Kerala government must move the Supreme Court.
Another statement by advocates Dheeraj SJ and Ananya Gowda accused the police of lackadaisical in their investigation.
“As part of his 164 statement on 11th July, (Sec. 183 of BNSS) he voluntarily handed over human remains from one location of exhumation, which were duly secured by the police and forensic team after several hours of processing that very night. He had every reason to believe that the very next day, the police would return with him to the site for mahazar and documentation,” the statement issued on Wednesday, said.
“Yet, as of today, 16th July, no such step has been taken. The police appear completely indifferent to the most compelling and irrefutable evidence the witness can provide — namely, the location and recovery of buried bodies. The continued delay is not just inexplicable, it is shocking to the complainant,” it added.
Mr V had filed six pages of information and provided to his lawyers official identification and photographic evidence.
He accused individuals linked to the Dharmasthala administration of systematically disposing of bodies that according to him allegedly showed signs of brutal violence that included rape and torture.
The man says he was ready to lead authorities to the sites where he was made to bury these victims if he and his family were provided protection under the Witness Protection Act of 2018.
The complainant stated that he worked from 1995 to 2014 as a sanitation worker under the Temple’s sanitation department.
“Early in my career, I noticed the bodies being dumped… Many of the female bodies were found without clothing or underwear. Some bore clear signs of sexual assault and violence: the bodies bore wounds or strangulation that indicated violence,” he had said.
“Around 1998, my supervisors instructed me to secretly dispose of these bodies instead of reporting them to the police. When I immediately refused and insisted that the deaths should be reported to the police, I was severely beaten. If I refused to follow their instructions or told anyone about it, they threatened, ‘We will cut you into pieces’, and ‘your body will be buried like the rest of the bodies’, and ‘we will kill your entire family’. Previously, they said, the person who had been doing the job had ‘disappeared’ as soon as he had hesitated. Their threat was unmistakable – Keep it or be cut into pieces with your family.”
Detailing 2 particular cases, he mentioned a school girl whose body he was forced to bury in 2010.
“The supervisors sent me to a place about 500 meters from a petrol pump. There I found the body of a teenage girl. She was probably between 12 and 15 years old. She was wearing a school uniform shirt. Her body bore clear signs of sexual assault.”
In the other case, Mr V said he was made to dispose of the body of a woman whose face had been burned with acid.
It was just not girls and women targeted according to him. Even poor men were targeted. “These murders took place in my presence,” he said. “I was instructed to bury these bodies in remote forest areas.”
Unable to bear all this, he with his family fled Dharmasthala in 2014. He has been living in hiding in a neighbouring state, constantly haunted by fear and guilt.
Mr V said he was willing to show the investigating officer the places where the dead bodies had been buried.
“I am ready to exhume the remains of the buried bodies in the presence of the police.”
“I am filing this complaint with full knowledge of the consequences of submitting false information. I certify that the above information is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. I am willing to submit to a polygraph or other test to establish the truthfulness of what I have stated,” he said.
Advocates Dheeraj and Gowda said the man came out on his own and revealed the horror. “Motivated by a fear of God and a deep sense of moral obligation, the complainant approached lawyers to confess, to seek direction and bring closure to a very brutal historic wrong,” they said in the statement.
(Edited by Majnu Babu with inputs from Nolan Patrick Pinto in Bengaluru).
