7 months ago
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The Kerala High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the “misappropriation” of gold-plated copper moulds encasing the chromatic carvings and sculptures astatine the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple inspected a jewellery store successful Bengaluru, Karnataka, connected Saturday (October 25, 2025).
Officials privy to the probe said the SIT has been successful the metropolis since Thursday (October 23, 2025) to verify the antecedents of the premier accused successful the case, Unnikrishnan Potti.
Mr. Potti, who is successful SIT’s custody, is reportedly with the team. Officials said the SIT inspected Mr. Potti’s flat successful the metropolis and besides interviewed the jewellery store proprietor with whom helium had fiscal transactions.
The SIT reportedly seized documents from the businessperson, who allegedly claimed to person donated golden done Mr. Potti to supposedly make a gilded screen for the sanctum sanctorum’s archetypal woody door.
The SIT’s lawsuit against Mr. Potti was that helium convinced the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) authorities successful 2019 that helium would reconstruct the fraying gilded encasings for escaped astatine a metallic works mill successful Chennai.
The TDB’s interior vigilance helping recovered that the “refurbished moulds” returned by Mr. Potti weighed little than the originals and had scarce golden content.
In its study to the High Court past month, the vigilance helping raised the anticipation that the fishy had smelted the artefacts for the golden astatine the factory, oregon had replicated them connected the sly to merchantability the originals to affluent collectors for backstage worship.
When asked whether the SIT had confiscated the “missing gold” from Bengaluru, Devaswom Board Minister V.N. Vasavan said the “investigation was connected the close track.”
Speaking to reporters successful Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Vasavan said the High Court was monitoring the probe. “Commenting connected the signifier oregon absorption of the probe volition beryllium tantamount to sub-judice,” helium said.
Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president, P.S. Prasanth, said the “SIT would retrieve each atom of golden filched from the temple.”
Last week, the SIT had submitted successful a magistrate tribunal astatine Ranni successful Pathanamthitta that Mr. Potti, who worked arsenic an adjunct to a clergyman successful Sabarimala during the 2004-08 period, had insidiously gained traction with the temple orthodoxy and TDB administrators by prevailing connected affluent devotees successful Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Karnataka to donate lavishly to the temple.
Mr. Potti besides coordinated their temple visits and became fashionable among the ellipse of affluent Ayyappa devotees, including movie stars and industrialists, successful Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. He moved to Bengaluru, wherever helium served arsenic a clergyman astatine the Jalahalli Ayyappa Temple.
The SIT has accused Mr. Potti of chartering the gilded coverings to affluent devotees for backstage worship astatine their respective homes. It has besides arrested a TDB official, Murari Babu, for facilitating the “gold theft” by itemising the gilded coverings arsenic made of axenic copper earlier handing them implicit to Mr. Potti’s accomplices for repairs successful 2019.
