A police officer attached to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the mass burials case in Dharmasthala has been accused of threatening a key protected witness, raising fresh concerns over the impartiality of the investigation.
Advocate Ananya Gowda, who is representing the complainant–referred to as ‘X’ for their safety– has submitted a formal complaint to the SIT. The complaint alleges that Inspector Manjunath Gowda from the Sirsi Rural police station intimidated the witness at the SIT camp in Belthangady on the night of August 1.
The complaint states that Inspector Gowda summoned ‘X’ to a private room, where he allegedly issued threats of arrest and imprisonment in connection with the original case filed at the Dharmasthala police station. He is also accused of pressuring the witness to retract the initial statement and instead blame unidentified “outsiders” for instigating the complaint.
“The Inspector instructed the witness to record a video retracting the original allegations. This was filmed on the officer’s personal phone,” the advocate said in her letter. She described the incident as deeply disturbing and said the act had compromised the witness’s ability to testify freely in the officer’s presence.
The advocate has called for Inspector Manjunath Gowda’s immediate removal from the investigation team, stating that his involvement poses a risk to both the safety of the witness and the credibility of the ongoing probe.
A senior SIT official said that the complaint is being reviewed seriously and that an internal inquiry will be conducted. An SIT official told TNM that it was unlikely that the police man would have tried to sabotage the case at this stage.
The man had filed a complaint with the Dharmasthala police station through his lawyers on July 3, and the police registered an FIR the next day. The Belthangady court recorded his statement under Section 183 of the BNSS on July 11, after which he agreed to lead investigators to the alleged burial sites. The SIT is now tasked with confirming the identities of the recovered remains and determining whether more bodies are buried at the other marked locations.