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Advocate N Manjunath has demanded the immediate arrest of Dharmasthala gram panchayat vice president Shrinivas Rao, following the discovery of human remains at one of the alleged burial sites in the ongoing mass burial investigation. Manjunath, who is representing Sujatha Bhat, the mother of missing medical student Ananya Bhat, said that the exhumation on Thursday, July 31 exposed the “hollow claims” made by Shrinivas, who had maintained that all burials in Dharmasthala were conducted officially with proper documentation.
“Today’s dramatic developments in the Dharmasthala mass burial case have exposed the hollow claims of panchayat vice president Shrinivas Rao, who maintained that all burials were conducted through official channels with proper documentation,” Manjunath said. He described the sites identified by the whistleblower as “treacherous, dangerous and difficult-to-access terrain” along the Nethravathi river.
“No panchayat anywhere in the country would ever choose such sites for official burials,” he added, pointing out that the locations make it implausible for the panchayat to have exhumed bodies for grieving families, as Shrinivas had claimed.
Breakthrough in Dharmasthala case: Human remains found at Spot 6
Manjunath alleged that Shrinivas’s statements amounted to an attempt to mislead the public and potentially obstruct justice. “Rao’s attempts to normalise these burials through false claims of documentation make him a prime suspect in the cover-up,” he said.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) is investigating allegations made by a former sanitation worker, who claims that between 1995 and 2014 he was ordered by his superiors to bury numerous bodies, many of women and children, some showing signs of sexual assault, in secret locations near Dharmasthala.
Manjunath further demanded that the SIT arrest Shrinivas “the moment human remains are recovered from these sites,” asserting that interrogation could provide crucial leads about the alleged cover-up and those responsible for the deaths.
The call for arrest came after the SIT recovered skeletal remains, believed to be male, from Spot 6 near the Nethravathi river on July 31. The remains, buried around three feet deep, were found during the third day of exhumation and mark the first major breakthrough in the probe.
The whistleblower led the SIT to 13 alleged burial sites, 12 of which are located in forested terrain or on the riverbank. Exhumation began on July 29, with operations slowed by heavy rains and the hazardous nature of the sites. Spot 6, where the remains were recovered, is one of several sites scattered across uneven, densely vegetated terrain along the river, which Manjunath said “proves these were clandestine operations to hide murder victims, not official procedures for unclaimed bodies.”
The allegations first surfaced in late June, when the whistleblower’s lawyers went public with his claims. He filed a police complaint on July 3, and an FIR was registered 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 locations. The SIT, led by DGP Pronab Mohanty, was constituted on July 19 to conduct an independent investigation.