A court at Belthangady in Karnataka remanded C N Chinnaiah, the witness-complainant in the Dharmasthala secret burials case, in the custody of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) till September 6 after his 10-day custody ended on Wednesday.
Chinnaiah filed a police complaint in July alleging that he had been forced to bury several bodies around Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada district and was warned against approaching the police. An SIT was formed by the state government on July 19. It dug up 16 locations around the temple town in the first two weeks of August. Chinnaiah was arrested on August 23 on charges of perjury after the SIT found inconsistencies in his statements. He was remanded to 10-day SIT custody then.
On Wednesday, the SIT sought an extension of his custody for further questioning. Soon after the Belthangady Judicial Magistrate First Class Court granted the extension, SIT officers escorted the complainant directly to their office at Belthangady.
During the day, the SIT is also learnt to have questioned people allegedly involved in the case related to the 2012 rape and murder of a college girl who had gone missing. The questioning was based on a statement made by a woman from Mandya who had written to the SIT claiming that she had seen a few people drag the girl away before her body was found.
According to sources, the SIT has quizzed one person identified in the complaint and issued notices to other people. The questioning came amid renewed demands to reinvestigate the rape and murder case.