Sujatha Bhat, the woman whose account of a daughter who went missing in 2003 fuelled the growing controversy in Dharmasthala over allegations of mass burials, sexual assault, and disappearances of women in Karnataka’s Dakshin Kannada district, retracted her claims on Friday and said her story was fabricated.
Speaking to a YouTube channel, Sujatha Bhat revealed the reason she made the claims about Dharmasthala. According to her, some people asked her to do it due to her property dispute with the temple authorities.
"Some people told me to say it. I was asked to do it because of the property issue. That’s the only reason,” she said when asked why she made such a claim.
The property issue concerns a plot of land owned by her grandfather, which was allegedly taken by the Dharmasthala temple authorities.
Sujatha claimed that Girish Mattannavar and T Jayanti, two prominent activists in the case, pushed her to tell the story, though she denied that money ever changed hands.
“Nobody demanded money from me. I have never asked anyone for money either. What I questioned was how my grandfather’s property was given away without my signature. That is the only thing I asked,” she explained.
{{/usCountry}}“Nobody demanded money from me. I have never asked anyone for money either. What I questioned was how my grandfather’s property was given away without my signature. That is the only thing I asked,” she explained.
{{/usCountry}}Girish Mattannavar and T Jayanti are yet to respond to her claim.
The initial claims about Dharmasthala
In her initial complaint about the disappearance, Sujatha Bhat had claimed that her daughter Ananya, then an 18-year-old medical student, vanished in May 2003 during a trip to Dharmasthala. According to her account, Ananya’s friends had gone shopping while she remained near the temples, but when they returned, she had disappeared.
Sujatha had even claimed before the police that she herself had been abducted, tied up, and warned not to return to Dharmasthala or speak publicly about what had happened when she attempted to find out what had happened. She alleged that she had been assaulted, left in a coma, and treated in a private hospital in Bengaluru’s Wilson Garden before recovering a month later.
Sujatha's account sparked claims about mass burials and the disappearance of women, along with sexual assault against the temple authorities, even prompting the Karnataka government to create a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the matter. She has asked for forgiveness for the claims.