The Belthangady Police in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district have come under sharp criticism after admitting to destroying key records of unidentified death cases registered between 2000 and 2015 — a timeframe that overlaps almost entirely with the period during which a whistleblower has alleged mass burials took place in Dharmasthala, a temple town located within the same taluk.

The erasure of these records has triggered deep concern, as the whistleblower claims that between 1998 and 2014, he was forced to bury and cremate the bodies of women and minors, many of whom, he alleges, bore signs of sexual assault.