A Crime Saga At A 'Holy' Place In Karnataka: Is There Anyone Bothered?

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 28 July 2025 After spending three decades racked with guilt, scared on sleepless nights, and often changing cities, a 48-year-old Dalit man appeared in Karnataka with information about one of the most horrific alleged crimes in India. Emerging from hiding after 12 years, the man, who once worked as a sanitation worker at the much-revered Dharmasthala temple, told police on July 3 that he was coming forward with “an extremely heavy heart and to recover from an insurmountable sense of guilt”. As a court-protected witness, the man’s identity cannot be revealed under the law. “I can no longer bear the burden of memories of the murders I witnessed, the continuous death threats to bury the corpses I received,” he said in his statement, reviewed by Al Jazeera, “and the pain of beatings – that if I did not bury those corpses, I would be buried alongside them”. Now, the Whistleblower wants to help in the exhumation of “hundreds of dead bodies” he buried between 1995 and 2014 – many of them women and girls, allegedly murdered after sexual assaults, but also destitute men whose murders he claims to have witnessed. En passant, Dharmasthala is an important pilgrimage centre in Karnataka because of the Lord Manjunatha Shrine, drawing believers even from outside the state. Though the news is so shocking and horrendous, there's still not much hue and cry about the whole incident. Agreed, all English dailies carried this blood-curdling news, albeit perfunctorily, the efforts are afoot to hush up the entire issue lest it should jeopardise the 'reputation' and 'image' of innumerable political figures, 'holy' people, temple trust and the very name of the place which is ironically known as Dharmasthala temple! Bigwigs from the Jain and Hindu communities are part of this macabre saga that had been going on for decades. So, let a skeleton remain in the cupboard. Don't let it tumble out of the cupboard. We have enough time for all rubbish things but no time for the helpless and innocent victims, who were brutally raped, killed and buried unceremoniously. Their wails and screams were cries in the wilderness. What shocks sane and sensible people all the more is the fact that this happened for years at a religious place without anyone ever questioning the temple authority. Moreover, religious people's perceptions that nothing hanky-panky can happen at 'holy' places also make these places sacrosanct and when something or someone becomes sacred or sacrosanct, the person and place enjoy all sorts of immunity. It becomes a law unto itself. This touch-me-not status makes religious places above all laws whereas, "Dairo-Haram Mein Bhi Wahi Sab Kuchh Chalta Hai/ Soch Ke Log Khamosh Rahte Hain Ke Khuda Rahta Hai " (All dubious things go on at shrines but people keep mum, thinking that god resides there). In fact, shrines are the main crime syndicates in India, be it a temple or a mosque. What happened at the Golden Temple in Amritsar? Khalistani terrorists turned it into a terror den. When Mrs Gandhi finally sent the Army on June 6, 1984 to flush out those miscreants from the sanctum sanctorum, they cried sacrilege and killed her after a few months on October 31. The same sanguinary fate befell her trusted General Arun Kumar Vaidya who was also gunned down in Poona on August 10, 1986. If you send army or police to 'holy' places, you desecrate these places. No one wants to accept the fact that these unholy places are already defiled by all sorts of dubious and lumpen elements. French physician and traveller Francois Bernier wrote in his book, " Travels in the Mogul Empire, " that Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of a few Hindu temples as they became epicentres of corruption and crimes. Modern historian Audrey Truschke has corroborated the same in her book, "Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth." By the way, this fearless historian is an anathema to the modern Hindutva forces because she demolishes all false narratives. In a religiously-intoxicated 'modern' India drunk on god/s and obscurantism, who'll listen to the cries of the ill-fated victims? It's, therefore, time for a few sane and intrepid individuals - like Ms Aiman Mehta of Pune Mirror who recently wrote a no-holds-barred write up on this issue - to unite and force the government and judiciary to take stern action against all those criminals who ravaged and killed innumerable women. Is there anyone bothered? Is our conscience dead? ----- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/crime-saga-holy-karnataka-bothered/d/136320 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism