Mangaluru: The complainant witness in the alleged Dharmasthala mass burial case will be produced before a magistrate on Wednesday.He was arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Aug 23. He was produced before the JMFC Belthangady and was sent to SIT custody. The SIT may further seek his custody, it is learnt. Meanwhile, the SIT officials continued to remain busy updating records, going through statements, engaging in documentation and other works related to the case. A lot of mahazars have been done and the same are being examined, said a senior SIT official.Meanwhile, activist Prashant S Sambargi filed a complaint before the SIT against a few YouTubers and a vernacular daily. He stated in the complaint that, shockingly, during the subsistence of witness protection, a few YouTubers released video interviews of the complainant witness. This was done when he was still under the protection scheme and in the safe house, thereby exposing his identity and violating the confidentiality guaranteed under witness protection. He claimed that after the witness protection period came to an end on Aug 23, and when he was taken into SIT custody, these YouTubers released video interviews on Aug 24. This sequence of events clearly shows that they had prior access to and knowledge of the protected witness and were in unlawful communication with him even while he was under protection. During this time, it is clearly established that either activists Mahesh Shetty Thimarody or Girish Mattanavar, or both, had passed on information to these YouTubers and facilitated illegal interviews. Case over video clipIn a complaint, Rajendra Das D of Dharmasthala stated that while he was browsing social media on his mobile phone on Monday, he noticed that Girish Mattanavar had spoken obscenely in a manner causing nuisance to the public and the video clip was circulated on Janata News. Based on the complaint, a case has been registered at Belthangady police station under Section 296 of the BNS, and an investigation is under way.
