SIT examining the money trail in Sabarimala gold ‘theft’ case

The High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the “misappropriation” of gold-plated religious artefacts from the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple is reportedly examining the money trail in the crime. 

The SIT on Saturday inspected the house of the prime suspect, Unnikrishnan Potti, in Thiruvananthapuram, purportedly for confiscating financial records to pinpoint the alleged amassing of unaccountable wealth, including real estate, or other transactions that indicate criminality. 

Officials privy to the probe said the State police cyberforensic sleuths commandeered by the SIT were reportedly ferreting out Mr. Potti’s mobile phone record logs for tracing online financial transactions, in an attempt to build a foolproof case against the accused. 

‘Unlawful smelting’

The SIT’s case pertains primarily to the “unlawful smelting” of the gilded moulds covering the stone carvings and sculptures of the Ayyappa temple for the gold, an estimated two kilograms, in 2019.

In its remand report filed in a magistrate’s court at Ranni in Pathanamthitta on Friday, S. Sasidharan, the investigating officer, had accused Mr. Potti, along with nine other serving and retired Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) members, of conspiracy, confidence trickery, theft, illegal pecuniary gain, causing loss to the Ayyappa temple, and violating the shrine’s ritualistic tradition by leasing out the coverings to wealthy devotees for private worship for significant backhanders.

The SIT appears focussed on tracing the “lost gold”. It told the court that Mr. Potti had the intention of committing the crime in conjunction with other suspects in the case. The SIT noted that Mr. Potti had worked as an assistant to a lower-level priest at the Ayyappa temple during the 2004-08 period. It stated that Mr. Potti was aware that the gilded coverings donated by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998 contained significant amounts of gold, an estimated 38 kg. 

The SIT said Mr. Potti, by escorting wealthy devotees to the temple and organising expensive pujas and feasts on their behest, gained traction with the TDB officialdom and the temple orthodoxy. 

Email to TDB

In 2019, the SIT told the court that Mr. Potti, with hindsight, suspiciously emailed the TDB that he would restore the frayed overlays at the entrance of the sanctum sanctorum to their original golden sheen. Subsequently, the TDB handed him the coverings after “mystifyingly” itemising them as pure copper claddings in temple records. 

The artefacts took a 39-day detour to the smelting unit in Chennai. En route, the SIT stated, the accused chartered out the religious artefacts to wealthy devotees in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai for private pujas at their homes in exchange for sizeable compensation.

The SIT stated that the smelting unit was party to the crime. When it returned the refurbished coverings, the amount of gold in the moulds had dwindled to 397 grams. The SIT is yet to name the firm as an accused and is verifying its complicity in the offence.