MANGALURU: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which resumed exhumation of alleged burial sites on Tuesday, found no human skeletal remains in connection with the Dharmasthala mass burial case. Day 7 of the exhumation process was carried out under the supervision of SP Jitendra Kumar Dayama, who is also the investigating officer of the SIT and Assistant Commissioner of Puttur Division Stella Varghese, at spot 11 and 12 shown by the witness-complainant amid heavy rain.
But the efforts of the SIT yielded no results as there was no trace of any remains. So far, out of the 12 sites dug by the SIT, human remains have been discovered in only one site.
Meanwhile, legal counsel representing Sujatha Bhat, mother of Ananya Bhat, a MBBS student who allegedly went missing in Dharmasthala a decade ago, on Tuesday claimed that 'three human remains were discovered after digging the sites shown by the complainant on Monday'.
In a press release, advocate Manjunath N, claimed, "On August 4, in a forest area approximately 100 meters away from site number 11, the exhumation team trekked to the top of a hill about 100 feet high. At least three human remains were discovered after digging the sites shown by the complainant. One of them was of a woman, it is learnt. A woman's saree was also found at the same location. It has been reported that some members of the team that went there were injured after slipping while climbing the hill. It is said that yesterday's exhumation was successful because the SIT allowed the complainant to take them to a location adjacent to area number 11, instead of asking him to limit himself only to area number 11 that he had initially measured."
He further claimed, "Insisting that the complainant sticks to his initial measurement made on the first day and extract the remains only from that location would be not only unscientific but also meaningless. A person who has the freedom to identify the locations he did show on the first day, also has the natural freedom to correct himself if what he initially identified appears to him later to be inaccurate," he claimed.
UDR case, second complaint handed over to SIT
The human remains recovery case registered at Dharmasthala police station on August 1, and a complaint registered by a person named Jayanth on August 4 have been handed over to the SIT.
DK SP Dr Arun K in a press communique said that DG&IGP M A Saleem has ordered to hand over the UDR case registered at Dharmasthala station where partial human remains were found at site no 6 and the complaint filed by Jayanth to the SIT for further investigation.
