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Thiruvananthapuram: In a major development in the Sabarimala gold theft case, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) has recorded the arrest of the third accused in the case, former temple executive officer Sudhish Kumar.
Sudheesh Kumar was interrogated at the crime branch office in Enchakkal, Thiruvananthapuram since Thursday evening, before his arrest was formally registered late on Friday night.
He was to be produced in Ranni court later on Saturday.
The Kerala High Court had constituted the SIT last month and given them six weeks to complete the investigation.
As a first step, the SIT registered two separate FIRs and made 10 people accused.
The first to go behind the bars was the accused – ‘sponsor’ Unnikrishnan Potti, and then it was the turn of former top Travancore Devaswom Board official Murari Babu.
After several hours of interrogation, Sudhish Kumar was identified as having played a key role in facilitating the misappropriation of gold by registering gold-plated Dwarpalaka panels as copper sheets and deliberately showing discrepancies in the ‘Mahazar’ (seizure report).
The interrogation was led by SIT officer Sasidharan.
The investigators concluded that the fraud allowed the main accused, Unnikrishnan Potti, to divert a portion of the temple gold with the help of Murari Babu.
The case dates back to 2019, when Kumar, who was working as the executive officer at Sabarimala, had recommended to the Travancore Devaswom Board that Unnikrishnan Potti be made the sponsor for the renovation work.
Despite knowing that the Dvarapalaka panels were plated with gold, he continued to list them as copper in inscriptions and when removing the panels.
Although Potti did not personally receive the items, Kumar registered his name in the mahazar, a move investigators believe was meant to conceal irregularities.
The SIT on Friday questioned Potti’s friend and middleman CK Vasudevan, who had allegedly stored the missing gold coins, but he was released after questioning.
Vasudevan’s name is also in the list of sponsors of Sabarimala.
The current Thiruvabharanam Commissioner, Raji Lal, was earlier questioned as he had opposed the transportation of the panels this year.
In a significant breakthrough, the SIT has seized crucial records from the Travancore Devaswom headquarters related to the 1998 gold plating operation funded by industrialist Vijay Mallya.
These documents detail how much gold was used and in what form, information that was previously reported as “unavailable” by temple officials.
Investigators said the recovery of these records would help establish the exact amount of gold used on the idols and how much may have been misused.
Now that the three key alleged conspirators are behind bars, it will be known in the coming days whether the political figures named in the FIR will be called or not, as the SIT is to submit its detailed report on the progress of the investigation before the High Court on Tuesday.
–IANS