Sabarimala gold theft case: Former temple executive officer arrested
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Pathanamthitta: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the alleged disappearance of gold from the Sabarimala temple has arrested former executive officer Sudheesh Kumar, officials said on Saturday.
Kumar, who served as the executive officer of the hill shrine in 2019, was taken into custody after being questioned at the Crime Branch office in Thiruvananthapuram, sources said.
He has been accused of concealing the fact that the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols were gold-plated, instead recording them as copper sheets in the temple’s official documents.
According to sources, Kumar had long-standing ties with Sabarimala since the 1990s and was aware that the sanctum sanctorum, including the Dwarapalaka idols, had been gold-clad during 1998–99.
However, when the Dwarapalaka plates were handed over to the prime accused, Unnikrishnan Potty, for gold plating in 2019, Kumar allegedly documented them as copper plates. This allegedly enabled the accused to remove the existing gold plating, an officer said.
Kumar is the third person to be arrested in the case, following the arrests of Potty and former administrative officer B. Murari Babu.
Officials said Kumar will be produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court later. Meanwhile, the SIT also interrogated Vasudevan, a close aide of Potty.
Investigators said Vasudevan had kept the additional gold-clad pedestal of the Dwarapalaka idols in his custody, which was later recovered from the house of Potty’s relative in Thiruvananthapuram last month.
The SIT is currently investigating two connected cases — one related to the loss of gold from the Dwarapalaka idols and another concerning the gold missing from the door frames of the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum), both of which were handed over to Potty for electroplating in 2019.
With PTI inputs