Amid rumours that an IPS officer assigned to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Dharmasthala secret burials case has sought to be excluded from the team, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara said Monday that such claims were far from the truth.
Responding to a question on whether any members of the SIT have opted not to be in the team citing personal reasons, he said, “I am not aware of it. They are senior officers in responsible positions.”
On Saturday, the Karnataka Government formed the SIT under Pronab Mohanty, Director General of Police, Internal Security Division. Besides him, M N Anucheth, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Recruitment), and IPS officers Soumyalatha S K and Jitendra Kumar Dayama are part of the probe team.
None of them has either approached the government or the Home Department saying that they will not be part of the SIT. “I don’t know why the media is saying that,” the minister said.
As per the allegations by a former sanitation worker, he buried dozens of unidentified bodies in Dakshina Kannada district’s Dharmasthala between 1998 and 2014. The police said the complainant has agreed to locate the burial spots if protection is provided to him and his family.
On comments by BJP Parliamentary Board member B S Yediyurappa and MP B Y Raghavendra against investigating the allegations, Parameshwara said, “Who demanded an investigation? Many people from the region, including progressive thinkers and others, have sought it. A complaint was also filed (by a whistleblower) about it.”
“We should know whether it (the alleged sexual assaults and murders) took place or not. If we drag this along, then it won’t be right according to the law either. Therefore, we have sought an investigation. I don’t know what will come out of it,” he said.
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If the investigation fails to uncover something, then as Yediyurappa said, we can inform that there was no wrongdoing to the general public, Parameshwara added