The Karnataka State Commission for Women has urged the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Dharmasthala cases to conduct a “comprehensive investigation into the disappearance of women and young girls, their rape, murder cases, abnormal and suspicious deaths and other cases.”
In a letter dated October 31, the Commission’s chairperson, Nagalakshmi Chowdhary, said the appeal was being made amid growing concerns that the probe had not adequately covered cases of missing women and unnatural deaths reported in and around Dharmasthala.
The Commission’s appeal came after the Karnataka High Court ordered an interim stay on the SIT investigation till November 12. The stay was issued just as the SIT, headed by IPS officer Pronab Mohanty, was preparing to submit its interim report to the government and a complaint report (equivalent to a chargesheet) to the jurisdictional magistrate. The pending report reportedly pertains to alleged perjury and the submission of a human skull, which investigators have described as false evidence.
The Women’s Commission referred to Crime No. 39/2025 registered at the Dharmasthala Police Station, based on a complaint by a man named Chinnaiah, who claimed he was forced to bury hundreds of bodies of women and girl children who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.
Following widespread media reports on these allegations, the Commission had, on July 14, 2025, written to the state government seeking a special team to investigate missing women, students, murders, unnatural deaths, and atrocities in the Dharmasthala region over the past two decades. The government subsequently formed the SIT and directed the Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG & IGP) to transfer all related cases — both registered and future ones — to the SIT.
However, the Commission has now noted that there has been no update on whether the SIT has pursued these broader lines of investigation. “According to media reports, the investigation since the formation of the SIT appears to have been limited to the production of human remains based on the statement of a person named Chinnaiah before the court,” Nagalakshmi Chowdhary wrote.
The Commission has urged the SIT to either begin a comprehensive inquiry into the disappearance and deaths of women and girls in the region or, if such an investigation has already been conducted, to share details of its findings with the Commission.
