A 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 said on Friday that her story was fabricated.
Speaking to a YouTube channel, the woman, identified as Sujatha Bhat, said that she was persuaded by Girish Mattannavar and T Jayanti, two prominent activists in the case, to claim that her daughter Ananya had disappeared in Dharmasthala in 2003. “It is not true. There was never any daughter named Ananya Bhat,” Sujatha said.
She conceded that the photograph circulated as evidence of Ananya’s existence was also fabricated. “It was all fake. Completely fake.”
“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 in question is a plot of land owned by her grandfather, which was allegedly taken by the Dharmasthala temple authorities.
Sujatha claimed that Mattannavar and Jayanti 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.
Her remarks marked a sharp departure from what she told investigators earlier this week. In her complaint, Sujatha 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 told 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.
In her statement on Friday, however, she sought to distance herself from those claims. Acknowledging the anger that her account stirred, she appealed to the public: “Yes, for the people of Karnataka, for the devotees of Dharmasthala… I ask the people of this state, and the whole country, to forgive me…” She insisted her actions were not driven by financial gain. “I never needed money…”
Prior to the video, the special investigation team (SIT), which is examining the mass burial claims, issued a notice to Sujatha on Friday, instructing her to appear at its office in Belthangady.