MANGALURU: Over six months after court directions, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the alleged mass burial case in Dharmasthala submitted a 7,005-page final report before a Belthangady court on Wednesday.
The report was submitted by SP C A Simon before the court of the Additional Civil Judge and JMFC. It includes the statements of about 255 witnesses, FSL reports, and a hard disc containing video-recorded statements and forensic evidence.
Assistant Public Prosecutor Divyaraj Hegde told media persons that the next hearing in the matter will be on August 29.
The SIT had filed a 3,923-page report before the court under Section 215(2)(b) of the BNSS in November last year, in which perjury and criminal offences were alleged against six persons — C N Chinna alias Chinnaiah, Mahesh Shetty Timarody, Girish Mattannavar, Jayanth T, Vittal Gowda and Sujatha Bhat.
Following the 3,923-page report, T H Vijayendra, Additional Civil Judge and Judicial Magistrate of the JMFC Court, Belthangady, had directed the SIT to submit a final report for it to take cognizance of the perjury and other criminal offences alleged against the six persons on January 3 this year.
Based on a complaint by C N Chinnaiah that he had buried the bodies of alleged victims of rape and murder, a case was registered at the Dharmasthala police station in July last year by Dharmasthala police. Following intense pressure, the state government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under DGP Pronab Mohanty to investigate the case.
During the investigation, the complainant had shown 17 alleged burial sites where digging for human remains was carried out.
Later, Chinnaiah was arrested on charges of perjury with regard to a skull he had presented before the court.
The SIT, upon further investigation, found that he was pressured by five persons, including activist Timarody.
When Timarody and the other persons named by Chinnaiah failed to appear for questioning before the SIT, a preliminary report was submitted to the court against the six persons, in which they were accused of giving false and fabricated evidence and forgery.
It may be recalled that Chinnaiah, on June 8 this year, had filed a writ petition before the High Court seeking directions to the SIT to submit the final report and take action against the five conspirators named in the preliminary report.