MANDYA : The “Mask Man”, arrested by the SIT on Saturday for making false claims that he buried bodies of several men and women in Dharmasthala village, hails from Mandya.
He studied up to third standard. His parents were respected in the community, but he was known to be an idler. Married at a young age, he lived in the village till 1994 and relocated to Dharmasthala when his brother moved there. In 2014, he returned to the village with his third wife and stayed for about a year.
During this time, the gram panchayat sanctioned a shed on government land, which he tried to claim for himself, leading to a dispute with the villagers. He left the village soon after and returned briefly last year during Pitru Paksha.
Villagers said, “It is wrong of him to make false statements about Dharmasthala. We suspect that he is doing it for money. When we visited Dharmasthala, he would take us inside the temple. Once, he distributed sarees in our village, claiming that they were given by Dharmadhikari Veerendra Heggade. We also heard that he used to steal ornaments from bodies.”
He is a great liar: First wife
“He is a great liar. I lived with him for seven years. He constantly lied to me, doubted me, scolded me and beat me. He is arrogant and made my life unbearable. Finally, I divorced him and went back to my mother’s house in Nagamangala,” said his first wife. She demanded a thorough probe to find out who prodded the Mask Man to make these false claims and that he should be punished. His friend Raju from Vaidyanathpur recently said the Mask Man’s statements were false.
The first wife, speaking to reporters near Nagamangala, said, “I married him 25 years ago. We have a son and a daughter. After marriage, he took me to Dharmasthala where Veerendra Heggade had given us a house. He worked there sweeping garbage and cleaning toilets at the Netravathi bathing area for a salary of Rs 3,000. It is said that at night, he used to bury unidentified bodies found in the river. But I don’t know what exactly he did.”
She alleged that the Mask Man is trying to malign Dharmasthala and the Dharmadhikari by acting on someone’s instructions. “The SIT has not found any human remains in the places he pointed out. All his allegations have turned out to be false. Dharmasthala is a sacred place and we are its devotees. He must be punished for spreading lies,” she said.
Two marriages after divorce
After divorcing his first wife, he is said to have married twice. One of his wives was from Bannari in Sathyamangalam. “He left me for a woman with whom he had an illicit relationship. His second wife demanded money. That may have made him take money from someone to make these false claims,” the first wife alleged.