Dharmasthala Case: Accused Alleges ₹200 Crore Conspiracy To Defame Veerendra Hegde, Names Actor Prakash Raj In Plea

Bengaluru: The episode of Dharmasthala temple town in Karnataka which had hit the national headlines in July 2025, when a former grave digger at the temple town C N Chinnaiah came out publicly and claimed to have buried hundreds of women bodies with sexual assault signs between 1995 and 2014 without procedures, has taken a new turn.

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Chinnaiah files plea in high court
Chinnaiah, popularly known as the `Mask Man', who failed to show remains of any bodies, despite the SIT formed to unearth the truth dug all the places he showed around the town, and later booked him for conspiracy to defame the temple and the chief trustee Dr Veerendra Hegde, has filed a plea in the Karnataka High Court, stating that his claims were part of a ₹200 crore conspiracy to defame and jail Dr Hegde.

SIT arrests and names conspirators
At the moment, the SIT has arrested Chinnaiah and has named several people including the group which was in the forefront of agitation against the Dharmasthala temple and its trustee, of hatching a conspiracy to defame the place. In his plea, he has named his associates as conspirators and requested the court to direct the SIT to submit the final report to Belthangadi court and initiate action against the conspirators.

Notable figures implicated
Apart from the names of Mahesh Thimmarodi, Vittal Gowda, Girish Mattannanavar, Jayanth, Kudla Ram, Ajay Anchan of Page UTube, Sameer M D of Dootha UTube, Chinnaiah has named multilingual movie actor Prakash Raj also. After preliminary hearing of the appeal, Justice Suraj Govindraj of the Karnataka High Court issued notices to Karnataka Home Department, Mangaluru Superintendent of Police, SIT, Dharmasthala Police Inspector and asked them to submit the status report of the case.

Details of alleged conspiracy
In his appeal, Chinnaiah has said that the conspirators had amassed a budget of ₹200 crore for this conspiracy and had promised to pay ₹50 lakh to him, if he cooperated with them and helped them jail Dr Veerendra Hegde. ``The main conspirator Mahesh Thimmarodi had threatened me to issue the statement that I had buried hundreds of women's bodies,'' he said.

``I was made to talk to Prakash Raj also and he had said that he would hug me when we met one day. Most of the money used to come from Kerala and some part of the money was coming from a person called Rama Nagaraj from Chitradurga. I was introduced to an advocate called K V Dhananjay and another advocate called Ojaswi Gowda also started handling the case. Now, the investigation is completed and the SIT has not filed the final report to the Belthangady court, which is suspicious. I request the court to direct the SIT to file the final report as soon as possible and initiate action against the conspirators,'' Chinnaiah added.

Background of the controversy
Though people like Mahesh Thimmarodi and Vittal Gowda have been levelling charges against Dharmasthala Temple Trustee and Rajya Sabha MP Dr Veerendra Hegde for a long time, the full fledged controversy began in July 2025, when Chinnaiah surfaced dramatically after a gap of 11 years in Dharmasthala and alleged that he was coerced into burying hundreds of bodies, primarily of women and minors in and around the Dharmasthala temple between 1995–2014. He claimed that many of these bodies showed signs of sexual violence. These allegations prompted the Karnataka government to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the claims.

Chinnaiah had come with advocates stating that he could identify the burial sites and had evidence of the alleged crimes. The SIT registered a FIR and conducted excavation in 17 designated sites, only to unearth minimal skeletal remains and fragments in a few locations, which could not substantiate his claims.