Mysuru: For a man, who is alleged to have come up with the dastardly plan to poison the prasada fed to devotees of the Kuchuguththi Maramma temple in Chamarajanagar district, that left 15 dead and 105 ill Friday last, Salur Math junior pontiff, Immadi Mahadevswamy, is very fastidious when it comes to his morning rituals.
He is said to have told the police he does not have breakfast without bathing and performing pooja first, and arrangements have reportedly been made to help him with his routine in its custody too while he awaits trial following his arrest.
The case is described as one of the rarest and reeking of "evil" even by the police. Superintendent of Police of Chamarajanagar district, Dharmendar Kumar Meena told the Deccan Chronicle, "I have handled several interesting cases, but never one involving such evil design, especially in Karnataka. It is the rarest of cases."
The fact that someone could intentionally mix poison in prasada for distribution to over a 100 devotees for his own gain has astounded him and his team comprising ASP Geetha Prasanna, DySP, P Puttamadaiah and 22 other officers and 40 policemen, who cracked the case.
"We were holding a monthly crime meeting last Friday when we heard about the food poisoning in Sulwadi. Going by the number of deaths and the patients coming in, we soon realised the gravity of the situation. By the second day going by the symptoms of the patients we suspected the presence of organophosphorous in the prasada and the forensic science lab report revealed it was monocrotophus. We first thought it was a case of accidental poisoning, but samples of the vegetables and rice turned out to be normal and so we realized it was a deliberate criminal act. The next question was what could be the motive," the SP explained.
At first the police checked the conflict between the Tamil Nadu based Bargur priests and the Kuchchuguththi Maramma temple priests, but after questioning a 150 people from Bargur, concluded they were not involved. While trustees of the temple remained tightlipped about the groupism in its administration, the absence of the junior pontiff at the foundation laying ceremony of the temple's gopura made the police suspicious and they soon learnt about his problems with the other trustees, which is now suspected to be the trigger for the conspiracy to poison devotees.
The police also came to know the junior pontiff was having an affair with Ambika, wife of temple manager, Madesh, and had leased out a house for her in Maartalli and even got her husband his job at the temple 8 years ago.
"Although we checked 21 shops in Ramapura, Kaudalli and Maartalli and other places nearby we found no one had bought any kind of poison from them in the recent past. But later when we looked at those who had recently visited Ambika, we found one of them was a relative, who was an agricultural officer. On going to his house, we realised he had given her the monocrotopus," Mr Meena recounted.
The police's suspicions were confirmed after the temple cook, Puttaswamy said the manager had sent him away from the kitchen and allowed distribution of the prasada although he was told it was smelling foul.
"We joined the dots and when confronted, the accused confessed to the conspiracy," the SP added. To begin with, the FIR in the case was filed under section 304 of IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder). But now after the investigation, the accused have been booked under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) section 120 D and section 118 of IPC (crimical conspiracy).
