Follow TNM’s WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
Chinnaiah, the complainant witness in the Dharmasthala case was produced before the Belthangady JMFC Court on Tuesday, September 23. He was brought from Shivamogga jail to record his new statement under Section 183 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).
He will be produced again before the court on September 25. Sources told TNM that during his deposition before the court, Chinnaiah said that while he did bury a few bodies, certain people had asked him to exaggerate his claims and say that all burials were illegal.
Chinnaiah had earlier claimed that he was forced to illegally bury hundreds of bodies, including that of several women and children who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.
He was arrested on August 18 after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) found discrepancies in the evidence he produced. The SIT said the human skull he claimed to have exhumed from an alleged burial site was, in fact, handed over to him by another individual.
Meanwhile, in the last few weeks, the SIT recovered 7 skulls and a crew skeletal remains along with an old identity card in Banglagudde, a hill in Dharmasthala. The card is said to belong to UB Ayyappa, a resident of T Shettigeri village in Ponnampete taluk, Kodagu district. Ayyappa, who was in his seventies, had gone missing around seven years ago after travelling to Mysuru for medical treatment. His family had filed a missing complaint at the Kutta police station in Kodagu, but he wasn’t found.
The skeleton has been sent for forensic examination and DNA analysis. Investigators said the cause of death, whether accidental or a case of murder, will be established only after the test results are available.
The SIT has also unearthed skeletal remains at one more hilly location.
Meanwhile, the Dakshina Kannada district administration has passed an order externing activist Mahesh Shetty Thimarody to Raichur district for one year. Puttur Assistant Commissioner Stella Verghese issued the order on September 18, acting on a report submitted by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Bantwal.
The report cited multiple cases booked against Thimarody and said his externment was necessary “to maintain law and order in the district.”
Thimarody has been spearheading the campaign seeking justice for the 2012 rape-and-murder victim Sowjanya. It was at the houses of Thimarody and his brother that Chinnaiah had stayed before being arrested by the Special Investigation Team on August 23.