Sanctified Silence

In the seemingly sacred shadows of Dharmasthala, a chilling spectre of buried truths and brutally morbid silence is unfolding, where delay in justice risks becoming denial

- AMAL CHANDRA

The recent revelations from Dharmasthala in Karnataka are deeply unsettling, not only because of the brutality they suggest but because of the deafening silence that allowed such atrocities to remain hidden for nearly two decades. On July 11, a former sanitation worker appeared before a magistrate and narrated an account that could rival the darkest of dystopian fictions. He claimed that from 1998 to 2014, he was coerced into burning and burying the bodies of women; many of them young girls in school uniforms, under threat and duress. He described acid burns, strangulation marks, and naked corpses. He spoke of threats to his life, of suppression, and a deeply institutionalized apparatus of fear and silence.

The setting of these crimes makes the revelations all the more disturbing. Dharmasthala is not just a town; it is a symbolic space, revered as a holy site, home to the influential Dharmadhikari and a temple that commands both religious authority and political reverence. Yet, just beneath the sanctified soil, the witness alleges, lie the remains of victims whose identities, sufferings, and deaths were denied justice. These are not unsubstantiated accusations alone. They arrive in the wake of a growing list of documented tragedies. The 2012 rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya, the mysterious disappearance of an 18-year-old MBBS student, Ananya Bhat, in 2003, and over 460 reported unnatural deaths over a decade in and around the temple premises all suggest a long and unbroken chain of unanswered questions.