SIT Arrests Former Sabarimala Executive Officer

Kumar was interrogated at the Crime Branch office before his arrest. He is accused of concealing the fact that the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols were gold-plated, documenting them instead as copper plates in the temple’s official records.

Kumar, who has been associated with Sabarimala since the 1990s, was aware that the sanctum, including the Dwarapalaka idols, was plated with gold during 1998-99.

In 2019, when Dwarapalaka plates were handed over to prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty for gold plating, Kumar allegedly registered them as copper plates and allowed the accused to later remove the existing gold plating.

Kumar was the third accused arrested in the case. Earlier, Unnikrishnan Potty and former administrative officer B Murari Babu were also arrested by the SIT.

Kumar will later appear in the First Class Magistrate’s Court.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the SIT interrogated Unnikrishnan Potty’s close aide Vasudevan. According to the investigation team, Vasudevan had kept in his custody the gold-plated additional base of Dwarapalaka idols, which was later seized from Potty’s relative’s house in Thiruvananthapuram last month.

The SIT is currently investigating two cases linked to the loss of gold from the idols of Dwarapalaka and the door frames of Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum), which were handed over to Potty for electroplating in 2019. The SIT investigation is being monitored by the Kerala High Court.