After appearing in court on Friday following his arrest the previous night, Unnikrishnan Potty, the key accused in the Sabarimala “missing gold” case, claimed that he was “trapped” and that those responsible would soon be brought before the law.
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The special investigation team (SIT) of the Kerala Police’s Crime Branch arrested Potty late on Thursday night from his house, after which he was questioned for hours.
On Friday, he was produced before a magistrate’s court in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district, where the Sabarimala temple is situated. The court granted the SIT 14 days’ custody of Potty, who is the main accused in two cases the SIT has registered so far, following a directive from the Kerala High Court, which took suo motu cognisance of the scandal.
While being taken out of the courtroom, Potty told reporters, “I will bring before the law all those who have trapped me.” As the High Court had directed the SIT not to make details of the probe public, the media was not allowed in the courtroom when Potty was produced. While he was being taken out of the courtroom, a person allegedly hurled a shoe at him.
Potty had worked as a helper of temple priests at Sabarimala in the latter half of the 2000s, and later emerged as a “sponsor” of gold-plating work done on items at the temple.
The accused in the cases related to the misappropriation of gold from the temple include, apart from Potty, the president and members of the Travancore Devaswom Board in 2019, which was the year in which the scandal is alleged to have taken place, allegedly with the involvement of the state-run board that manages the temple.
Earlier, the temple’s vigilance officer had found that in 2019, when gold-clad plates of the temple’s Dwarapalaka idols and door frames were handed over to Potty for further gold-plating, the items were recorded as mere copper plates. These items, already covered in gold in 1999, were handed over to him on different occasions in 2019. The existing gold was extracted, and after replating, 474.9 grams of gold remained unaccounted for, the High Court had observed while examining the matter.
