Murari Babu sent in SIT custody, to be interrogated together with Potti

The Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Ranni on Tuesday remanded Murari Babu, a Travancore Devaswom Board employee currently under suspension, in four days of police custody for interrogation in connection with the alleged theft of gold from the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple.

Official sources said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) would question him alongside Unnikrishnan Potti, the prime accused in the case. The SIT sought his custody to probe a suspected conspiracy involving the accused and to verify whether any financial transactions had taken place between him and Mr. Potti.

Following the court’s order, the SIT team escorted Mr. Babu to the Crime Branch office in Thiruvananthapuram. Officials indicated that both the accused may be brought together for evidence collection in the coming days.

The custody period of Mr. Potti will continue till October 30.

Meanwhile, the SIT has sought additional documents from the TDB in connection with the gold-plating work at Sabarimala undertaken by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1999. The team stated that the renovation records from Sabarimala are crucial to the ongoing investigation and warned that no further time would be granted to officials to produce the required documents.

Meanwhile, the TDB is likely to take up for discussion on Wednesday a request from Sabarimala Tantri Kantararu Rajeevaru to take back ‘the vaji vahanam’ (horse effigy) from the old flag mast. The Tantri had earlier submitted a letter in this regard to the Sabarimala Executive Officer.

The effigy had been handed over to the Tantri as per temple custom when a new flag mast was installed at the hill temple in 2017.