THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president P S Prasanth and board member A Ajikumar were on Thursday arrested by the High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Sabarimala gold theft case, giving a new impetus to the investigation that had apparently lost verve after a wave of arrests in the initial stage.
The SIT had earlier stated that the duo had granted the nod to send the gold plates from the dwarapalaka idols to Chennai for re-plating in 2025, in a bid to cover up for the alleged disappearance of gold in 2019. Prasanth was TDB president in 2025.
Prasanth was taken into custody from his residence in Thiruvananthapuram in the morning and brought to the Kollam Police Club, where his arrest was recorded after interrogation by the SIT led by S Sasidharan. Ajikumar turned up after being summoned, and he too was arrested following a few hours of questioning. The duo was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days by the Kollam Vigilance Court. Prasanth is the third former TDB preseident to be arrested in the case, after N Vasu and A Padmakumar.
Prasanth and Ajikumar were arraigned as accused in the case related to the missing of gold from the dwarapalaka idols that occurred in 2019. The SIT had informed the High Court that Prasanth and other members had given the nod to move the gold-plated covering of dwarapalaka idols to Chennai in 2025 for electroplating without prior approval from the court and informing the special commissioner.
The SIT had told the court that re-electroplating was done with the intention to cover up the gold theft that occurred in 2019. The plan was executed to destroy evidence in the past gold theft, the SIT had alleged.
Prasanth claims political conspiracy behind arrest
Prasanth had rejected the charges levelled by the SIT, terming them n allegations were politically motivated and part of a conspiracy. He said he had met Unnikrishnan Potti, the main accused, only once and had never met Govardhan or Pankaj Bhandari, the other accused in the case.
In a social media post hours before his detention on Thursday, Prasanth reiterated his innocence and alleged that the move to implicate him and the 2025 board was a political conspiracy. He wrote that the temple did not incur a loss of even one rupee owing to the shifting of the dwarapalaka idols for re-plating to Chennai in 2025.
He said the decision to re-plate the idols was taken on the basis of the complaints by the temple staff, who said their hands got cut regularly while cleaning the idols as the covering had worn off. The idol was transported to Chennai after weighing and under heavy security.
The only fault the court noticed was that the special commissioner was not informed about the move, which at best is a bureaucratic lapse, for which the board should not be held responsible, he wrote on social media.
Prasanth had unsuccessfully contested the 2021 assembly elections as a Congress candidate before switching over to the CPM. He was appointed the TDB president in 2023.