A magistrate’s court in Ranni, Pathanamthitta, sent Murari Babu, former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) administrative officer, to the custody of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the misappropriation of the gold-plated copper panels from the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple.
Earlier, the SIT had arrested Mr. Babu on suspicion of having facilitated the fraud by falsely categorising the gilded panels donated to the temple by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998 as made of pure copper.
The alleged fraud occurred in 2019, when the TDB accepted the dubious offer of Unnikrishnan Potti, the prime accused in the case and a former temple assistant, to restore the “frayed” panels to their original golden sheen.
The SIT had arrested Mr. Potti in October on the charge of smelting the gilded panels for the gold. They are also investigating him on suspicion of replicating the gilded moulds covering the temple’s stone carvings and sculptures in cheaper alloy, to sell the originals to wealthy collectors.
The SIT has also indicted him for chartering the religious artefacts to wealthy devotees in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai for private worship.
Meanwhile, the SIT produced the former Thiruvabharanam Commissioner, K.S. Baiju, before a magistrate in Thiruvananthapuram and obtained his judicial remand. The SIT is likely to seek his custody for questioning.
The SIT had arrested Mr. Baiju, who was in charge of the temple’s treasury, for allegedly facilitating the fraud. His absence on the day the encasings were dismantled and handed over to Mr. Potti had reportedly aroused the SIT’s suspicion. Moreover, the SIT has accused him of failing to oversee his deputies’ categorisation of the gilded panels as made of pure copper. Furthermore, the absence of the temple smith when the panels were removed from the sculptures had pushed Mr. Baiju into the ambit of the SIT probe. D. Sudheesh Kumar, former executive officer of the TDB, is in judicial custody following his arrest last week.
Published – November 07, 2025 09:06 pm IST
