Powertrip: Burials, backlash, and a lawsuit withdrawn in the Dharmasthala puzzle

Welcome to this week’s Powertrip, a political newsletter exclusively curated for TNM and NL subscribers by Dhanya Rajendran, Pooja Prasanna,  Shabbir Ahmed and Shivani Kava. In this week’s newsletter, we unravel the many layers of the Dharmasthala tangle. A startling police complaint about mass burials has put the Congress government in a bind, with internal hesitations delaying action. As an SIT finally begins its work, one of its key officers wants out. The media is split – some reporting, others in denial, and a few running what the complainant’s lawyers call a cover-up campaign. A major national news channel that had reported aggressively from the ground was named in a court case filed by the Dharmasthala family, only for the case to be strangely withdrawn later. We bring you all the details.

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The Dharmasthala tangle

On July 3, a man claiming to be a former sanitation worker in Dharmasthala filed a police complaint alleging that he had buried several bodies in the temple town. Given the seriousness of the allegations and the political context, many believed the Congress government would waste no time in launching a full-fledged probe. After all, the Dharmasthala Manjunatha temple is headed by Veerendra Heggade, a Rajya Sabha MP nominated by the Union government, and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is seen as someone who would not shy away from taking on a religious institution if necessary.

However, the government dragged its feet for over two weeks. TNM has learnt that there were two main reasons for this delay.

The first was that the Dharmasthala and Dakshina Kannada police told the government that the whistleblower was mentally unstable and that his claims could not be trusted. As pressure mounted, the government continued to seek further reports from the police, who maintained the same position.

Eventually, the police suggested that exhumation should only be carried out if there was a court direction. When such a direction did not materialise, the government was left with little option but to form a Special Investigation Team. Several ministers were not happy with this decision, and this is where the political hesitation began to play out.

While Siddaramaiah and a few ministers in his cabinet were in favour of a probe from the beginning, others cautioned that if the exhumation failed to uncover any evidence, it could severely damage the government’s credibility. The fear is that if no human remains are found at the sites pointed out by the complainant, the narrative would shift to suggest that the entire exercise was a politically motivated attempt to target a Hindu temple, and that the Congress government had enabled it. This concern continues to weigh on the minds of many within the administration, which explains the cautious approach.

A case withdrawn

After the story broke, Harshendra Kumar, Veerendra Heggade’s brother, filed two petitions before the Bengaluru City Civil Court. One sought an injunction or gag order against Times Now. The second petition asked for a gag order against 338 media outlets and individuals. In a surprising move, Harshendra has since withdrawn the petition against Times Now.

Times Now was the first English language news channel to report from the ground. It aired multiple segments and panel discussions on the issue, and its coverage was cited by the Karnataka State Women’s Commission as well as in the government’s order setting up the SIT.

So what transpired? 

We have been told that the owner of the channel was made aware that the Heggade family was unhappy with the coverage and it seems some solution was arrived at.

Meanwhile, a clear divide is emerging in Kannada media. Some channels are actively covering the Dharmasthala story while others have completely ignored it. There is also a third group of channels that claim that the entire episode is a conspiracy against Dharmasthala. Power TV is part of this group.

The channel’s Managing Director and anchor Rakesh Shetty has launched a tirade against the complainant, calling him a lunatic. He has also claimed that Dharmasthala got its official graveyard only in 2006, and that before that, unclaimed bodies were buried in forest areas, government land, and revenue land. Shetty has even asserted that any bodies exhumed by the SIT are already accounted for by the local panchayat. He has also been insisting that even if body parts of women are unearthed, there is no way to determine if they were sexually assaulted. 

Lawyers representing the complainant view this as part of an elaborate cover-up. One lawyer has already written to both the Supreme Court and the High Court, alleging that the channel is intimidating the complainant.  

Meanwhile, the SIT formed by the government too is facing troubles. MN Anucheth IPS, a well-regarded police officer who was named as part of the SIT, has conveyed to the government that he wants to opt out. A source said that Anucheth is not happy with his recent posting as DIGP Recruitment and feels that the government is punishing him on one hand while expecting him to be part of a crucial SIT on the other.

Anucheth was the ASP of Puttur in 2012 when a college student named Sowjanya was raped and murdered. Though the investigation was done by lower-ranked officers at the local police station, Anucheth as the ASP was overall in charge.

The police’s finding that a man named Santhosh Rao was behind the crime was never proven in court. Moreover, the court had come down heavily on the investigating team for destroying and planting evidence. Though the investigation ended in a spectacular failure, it is widely believed that the people in Dharmsthala, including those who are part of the ‘Justice for Sowjanya’ campaign, have no objection to his involvement in the SIT.

Government sources say that Anucheth has been part of other SITs and that was one of the reasons he was included in this team. He had also headed the SIT that investigated the assassination of journalist Gauri Lankesh. 

The chief minister will take a call on Anucheth’s request.

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