Sabarimala temple gold theft case: Former officer arrested by SIT

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into the missing gold from the Sabarimala temple has arrested former executive officer Sudheesh Kumar in connection with the case, news agency PTI reported.

 

Kumar, who worked as the temple’s executive officer in 2019, was taken into custody after being questioned at the Crime Branch office in Thiruvananthapuram. He is accused of hiding the fact that the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols were gold-plated, and falsely recording them as copper sheets in the temple’s official documents.

 

Third arrest in the case

 

Kumar is the third person arrested in the case, after Potty, who sponsored the electroplating of the Dwarapalaka idol plates in 2019, and former administrative officer B Murari Babu. Officials said he will be presented before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court. The SIT has also questioned Vasudevan, a close aide of Potty, who allegedly kept an additional gold-plated pedestal from the idol, later found at a relative’s house in Thiruvananthapuram.

 

How did the gold go missing?

 

According to the report, investigators said Kumar had been associated with Sabarimala since the 1990s and knew the idols were covered in gold. In 2019, when the Dwarapalaka plates were handed over to the main accused, Unnikrishnan Potty, for gold plating, Kumar allegedly listed them as copper. This allowed Potty to remove the existing gold plating without raising suspicion.

 

Gold recovered from Karnataka

 

In October, the SIT recovered about 400 grams of stolen gold from a jewellery shop in Bellari, Karnataka. The gold had been handed over by Potty to his associate Govardhan, whose shop was raided by the police. Investigators also found gold coins and ₹2 lakh in cash at Potty’s home in Pulimath, Thiruvananthapuram.

 

Sabarimala temple gold theft

 

In 2019, copper plates clad in gold that adorned the Dwarapalaka idols and other sacred panels at the temple were removed for re-plating. The initial weight of the gold-clad plates was approximately 42.8 kg. However, when they were handed over to a firm in Chennai, their weight dropped to about 38.26 kg, leaving an unexplained shortfall of around 4.54 kg.

 

(With inputs from PTI)