Dharmasthala mass burials: Woman who claimed daughter went missing admits she 'faked' disappearance
Sujatha Bhat, the woman who claimed that her daughter, Ananya Bhat, went missing in 2003, has now retracted her claims, saying the story she told was “fake and not true.”
She has alleged that activists pressured her to make up the story due to a “property issue.”
Speaking to YouTube channel InsightRush, she said that she was persuaded to create the story by Girish Mattannavar and T Jayanti, two activists in the case.
Sujatha said to the channel, “It is not true. There was never any daughter named Ananya Bhat.”
When asked why she made such a claim, she said, "Some people told me to say it. I was asked to do it because of the property issue. That’s the only reason,”
The property issue was about a plot of land that was owned by her grandfather and was later, allegedly, taken by the Dharmasthala temple authorities.
“Nobody demanded money from me. I have never asked anyone for money either. What I questioned was how my grandfather’s property was given away without my signature. That is the only thing I asked,” she said.
She also said that the photograph she provided as evidence was also fabricated and said, “It was all fake. Completely fake.”
In the complaint Sujatha made to the authorities, she had claimed that her daughter Ananya, 18, a medical student, had disappeared in May 2003 during a trip to Dharmasthala with her friends. She said that the teen disappeared near the temple while her friends went shopping.
Sujatha also claimed to the police that she was abducted and threatened, and warned not to return to the temple or speak out about what happened. She said that after she was assaulted and left in a coma, she had to be treated in a private hospital in Bengaluru, Wilson Garden, before recovering ga monthh later.
Sujatha has acknowledged that her account stirred the public and said that she did not make the claims for financial gain. She said, “Yes, for the people of Karnataka, for the devotees of Dharmasthala... I ask the people of this state, and the whole country, to forgive me...I never needed money. ”
On Thursday, anonymous sources from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education informed the that there was no record of any student named Ananya Bhat who was enrolled for first year MBBS in Kasturba Medical College in 2003, reported the Deccan Herald.
India