Dharmasthala case: Govt has given clearance, it is for SIT to submit charge sheet, says minister

Bengaluru: Amid reports that the SIT probing the allegations of "multiple murders, rapes and burials" in Dharmasthala is likely to file a charge sheet, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Thursday said, the government has given its clearance, and it is left for the investigating team on when to submit. The SIT is likely to file the charge sheet before the Belthangady court very soon, sources said. "We have given clearance to them (SIT) from the government. Submitting the charge sheet is left to the SIT. They will have to do it within 90 days," Parameshwara told reporters in response to a question about SIT filing charge sheet in Dharmasthala case. Asked, has any information been shared with the government, he said, after submitting the chargesheet to the court, the SIT will share information with the government. "Let the things in the chargesheet come out, what is there in it will be known. As SIT has been formed by the government, information will be shared with us," he said. .To a question, will the information in the chargesheet be shared and discussed during the upcoming legislature session starting from December 8, the Home Minister said, facts have to be updated to the House (legislature), where discussions have taken place regarding the case, in the past.

A controversy erupted after a complainant, later identified as C N Chinnaiah and arrested on charges of perjury, claimed burying a number of bodies, including those of women with signs of sexual assault, in Dharmasthala over a period of past two decades, with the implications pointing towards the administrators of the local temple. The Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed by the state government, which is probing charges, has conducted excavations at multiple locations identified by the complainant in the forested areas along the banks of the Netravathi River in Dharmasthala, where some skeletal remains were found at two sites. Later, the SIT, recently had again recovered some skeletal remains during a search operation in the Banglegudde forest area near the Nethravathi bathing ghat.