Bengaluru: Former Temple Worker Arrested Over False Claims at Dharmasthala

Bengaluru, August 23, 2025 – A former sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple has been arrested following the revelation that his claims were fabricated. The individual, identified as C.N. Chinnayya, the complainant in the case, has had his witness protection status revoked. The arrest was carried out by the Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT), which uncovered inconsistencies in his statements.

Chinnayya is scheduled to be presented before a magistrate this evening, with a medical examination to be conducted prior to his court appearance. The SIT, led by Chief Pranav Mohanty, interrogated the suspect from 10 a.m. yesterday until 5 a.m. today, concluding that the complaint was baseless. He has been charged with filing a false complaint and misleading the investigation team, and is currently detained at the Belthangady SIT office.

Chinnayya had alleged that approximately 100 bodies were buried at the Dharmasthala site, prompting an extensive search. He further claimed that between 1998 and 2014, numerous minors and women were killed and buried there. Authorities conducted searches at 15 suspected locations, but only a single male skeleton was discovered at the sixth site.

In a related development, a woman who had previously filed a complaint claiming her daughter went missing from Dharmasthala in 2023 has admitted to fabricating the story. Sujata Bhatt, the complainant, revealed in an interview with a YouTube channel that her claim about her MBBS student daughter, Ananya Bhatt, going missing was untrue. She confessed that she has no daughter by that name and alleged that two prominent activists, Girish Mattannavar and T. Jayanthi, had pressured her to make the false accusation. This revelation has added further complexity to the ongoing investigation.