Dharmasthala Mass Burial Case: 'Masked Man' Unmasked As Chinnayya

Bengaluru: In a dramatic turn of events, a major breakthrough has emerged in the Dharmasthala mass burial case. The anonymous “masked man” has been identified as C.N. Chinnayya, who has now been arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT). He was earlier granted witness protection, which is why he appeared masked.

According to the reports, Chinnayya confessed before the SIT that he was not the only one involved, claiming that an entire team had been working behind the conspiracy for over a year. He also admitted that he was motivated by money. Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara confirmed the arrest but added that further details could not be revealed as it could hinder the investigation.

Chinnayya’s first wife alleged that he is a “big liar,” saying that he had done injustice to her in the past and is now doing the same to the holy site of Dharmasthala, for which he must be punished.

The BJP strongly condemned the episode, calling it a deliberate attempt to defame a Hindu temple, and demanded that the case be handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Meanwhile, the state government is supporting the temple authorities, assuring that the SIT is conducting a fair and unbiased investigation.

Breaking his silence for the first time, Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari, Dr. Veerendra Heggade, said 'It's only a matter of time before the truth comes out' 

What's the Dharmasthala Mass Burial Case?  

The sensational case first surfaced in July 2025, when a man appeared claiming he had personally buried multiple bodies of raped and murdered women and girls while working as a sanitation worker at the Dharmasthala temple between 1995 and 2014.

He alleged that many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments, with several showing signs of sexual assault, strangulation, and violent injuries. According to him, temple supervisors instructed him to burn the bodies completely to erase all traces, and he estimated the number of corpses to be in the hundreds.

By 2014, after nearly 20 years of service, he said he could no longer bear the mental torture. The breaking point came when a girl from his own family was allegedly sexually harassed by someone linked to the temple supervisors, prompting him to flee Dharmasthala with his family in December 2014.

Since then, they had lived in hiding, frequently changing residences in a neighbouring state. He said he carried the burden of guilt, but his conscience eventually pushed him to break his silence. He even offered to undergo brain-mapping and polygraph tests, and to help identify the burial sites, some of which the SIT had begun examining.

The case gained further limelight when YouTuber Sameer MD covered it, which led to massive traction on social media platforms and eventually pushed the case into the national headlines.

Before these latest revelations, the first case to spark massive protests in Dharmasthala was the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya in 2012.

Despite a decade of outrage, no one has been convicted in the case. Sowjanya, a pre-university student at Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College in Ujire, lived with her father Chandappa Gowda (a PWD contractor) and mother Kusumavathi, in Ujire.

Adding to the controversy, a woman named Sujatha Bhat filed a police complaint on July 15, 2003, claiming her daughter Ananya Bhat had gone missing. However, she later admitted the story was fabricated.

Sujatha alleged that she was pressured by activists to fake the story due to a property dispute involving her grandfather’s land, which she said was linked to the Dharmasthala temple authorities. She also revealed that the photograph presented as “proof” of her daughter’s existence was completely fake. According to her, activists Girish Mattannavar and T. Jayanti had asked her to make up the claim.

The Dharmasthala case has now taken a sensational turn with the unmasking and arrest of C.N. Chinnayya. While his confession has exposed a larger alleged conspiracy, questions remain about the truth of his claims, the role of others involved, and whether justice will finally be delivered to long-silenced victims like Sowjanya. As the SIT continues its investigation under intense political and public scrutiny, the truth behind the mass burial allegations may soon come to light.

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