Belthangady Police Under Scrutiny for Missing Death Records Linked to Dharmasthala Case

Mangaluru: Allegations of serious lapses by the Belthangady police have surfaced in connection with the controversial Dharmasthala case. A Right to Information (RTI) reply has revealed that all records related to unnatural deaths between 2000 and 2015 within the jurisdiction of the Belthangady police station have been removed. The disclosure was made in response to an RTI application filed by Jayant, an RTI activist and member of the Dharmasthala Action Committee.

This development follows earlier claims by a sanitation worker, who alleged that nearly hundreds of bodies were secretly buried in Dharmasthala between 1995 and 2014. The removal of relevant police records from a station located close to the area has raised serious suspicions.

Jayant had sought details through RTI about missing persons, unidentified bodies, and deaths classified as unnatural within the station’s jurisdiction. However, in a surprising response, the police stated that posters, notices, postmortem reports, and photographs related to unidentified bodies had all been discarded. The reply further noted that complaints and photographs of missing persons had also been destroyed, allegedly as part of routine administrative procedures.

Jayant, in his capacity as an RTI activist, had sought police records to help identify those who had gone missing. But he was told that all such data had been destroyed. “In an era of digital records, how can this information not have been digitised? If human remains are recovered now, how can they be matched to missing person data that no longer exists?” he asked. “Who ordered the destruction of such crucial information? Who is shielding the truth? With computerised systems in place, how can police justify this level of data loss? A comprehensive investigation is absolutely necessary,” he added.