Thiruvananthapuram: With more high-profile arrests on the cards, the investigation into the Sabarimala gold theft case is set to probe deeper into the conspiracy allegedly hatched with the connivance of past bigwigs of the temple board.
Last week, the Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Kerala High Court, arrested former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president and commissioner N. Vasu, an appointee of the LDF government in 2019.
The SIT has also summoned another former TDB president, A. Padmakumar, for interrogation.
The story, in brief, is this: In 1998, liquor baron Vijay Mallya—now facing extradition proceedings for alleged financial crimes in India—had the roof and portals of the famed Sabarimala Sreedharma Sastha Temple’s sanctum sanctorum gold-cladded. Two decades later, in 2019, the TDB decided to refurbish the gold cladding on two Dwarapalaka idols flanking the ornately plated portal. At that time, one Unnikrishnan Potti appeared on the scene as an intermediary to get the work sponsored by affluent donors and had the precious objects moved out. By the time they were returned, much of the solid gold that went into them had vanished.
This brazen loot of invaluable temple wealth allegedly took place with the awareness—and suspected involvement—of the then temple administrators and top officials.
Padmakumar, a former CPI(M) MLA and long-time state committee member, is closely associated with the party. Vasu too is considered close to the CPI(M). A couple of former TDB officials have also been arrested and remanded along with Potti.
Vasu, who initially asserted that he had nothing to do with the decisions that led to the theft, is alleged to have been part of the core team that raised a file describing the gold-cladded temple portals as “copper-plated.” At that time, he was the Devaswom Commissioner at the TDB. He was later elevated as president by the LDF government.
Amid these developments, the LDF government made a deft move last week by appointing former chief secretary K. Jayakumar as TDB president.
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Jayakumar has an unblemished record as an efficient and principled civil servant. He has displayed administrative acumen while holding key positions as a bureaucrat. After assuming office, he said that cleaning up the cobwebs and regaining the credibility of the temple board would be his priority.
Besides Sabarimala, the TDB administers major temples in Kerala’s Travancore region, comprising districts south of Kochi. There are also two other temple boards—the Cochin Devaswom Board and the Malabar Devaswom Board—which govern temples in central and northern Kerala, respectively.
A few other temples, including the Guruvayur Sree Krishna Temple and the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, have separate state-controlled governance structures.
The government has chosen a non-political person to head the TDB, apparently to cool the political heat generated by the scam. Significantly, campaigning for the local body polls is under way, and the temple heist features prominently across the state along with other local issues.
Predictably, the opposition Congress-led UDF and the BJP have leveraged the scandal in the run-up to the civic polls.
The CPI(M) leadership, the lead constituent of the LDF, has distanced itself from the accused and suspects.
Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also entered the scene, flaunting its credentials as the central agency mandated to probe serious offences and frauds that come under the ambit of the PMLA Act.
The two-month pilgrimage season of the Sabarimala temple got under way this week, with thousands of devotees trekking up to the hill shrine. The pilgrimage season, stretching up to mid-January, will be a major test for both the government and the new temple board.
