The Great Temple Mafia

Treasury theft, sexual assault and a death in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple

Three years after the underground vaults of Thiruvananthapuram’s Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple were opened and a stunning amount of old jewellery, gold and silver estimated around Rs 1 lakh discovered, the Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae, Gopal Subhramanyam, has found that the treasure is being pilfered. In his report, he also mentions a sexual assault of a woman who stitched clothes for the temple, an acid attack attempt on a temple employee who had questioned theft in the temple, and the death of an auto driver, Anil Kumar, whose body was found in a pond inside the temple.

Asking for another investigation into the death, which the police concluded is a case of drowning, the report notes, ‘Mafia is involved in the administration of the temple and all nefarious acts are committed in the name of the palace’. The erstwhile royal family of Travancore controls the administration of the shrine.

Subhramanyam claims to have found 17 kg of gold being pilfered, and, shockingly, a gold plating machine on the temple premises. The report has asked for a CAG audit of the treasure. Subhramanyam has also asked that the present trustee, controlled by the royal family, be prevented from interfering in the day-to-day management of the temple.

The amicus curiae has urged the Supreme Court to direct the trustee of the temple to submit an affidavit on the various bank accounts and land owned by the temple, as well as details of the properties and their documents. Referring to the resistance put up by the royal family against opening vault B three years ago citing divine reasons, Subhramanyam apparently found that the vault had been opened several times and many articles are now missing.

The temple management, however, claims that the report is ‘misleading’. According to the executive officer of the temple, SR Bhubanedran, the report is an attempt to create a negative image of the temple administration among devotees.

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Shahina KK