Who Is The SP Of Dakshina Kannada Trying To Protect?

By all accounts, the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Dakshina Kannada seems more interested in warning the press than in pursuing the truth. His repeated statements advising the media not to indulge in "speculative" reporting—especially in the explosive context of the alleged mass burials and rape cases in Dharmasthala—are not just misplaced; they are alarming.

Let us be clear: when a whistleblower claims he was ordered by the temple authorities to bury hundreds of bodies, it is not “imaginative” journalism to report it—it is investigative duty. It is not “speculation” when national channels like Times Now and India Today begin running detailed reports into these allegations. At this point, the SP’s public remarks appear less about protecting the integrity of the investigation and more about shielding entrenched power.

And what is that power? For decades, the `religious authorities' in Dharmasthala have wielded a near-feudal influence over the region. Every time a case of rape or murder has emerged, it has mysteriously vanished into judicial silence—stay orders obtained at lightning speed, FIRs stifled, victims discredited, and media houses sued into silence. Now that these allegations have spilled beyond the courts into the national imagination, the old tactics are failing. But silence still needs to be enforced—and that job, it seems, has passed from temple lawyers to the local police.

In a functioning democracy, it is not the job of the police to lecture the press on what is real and what is not. That role belongs to the readers and to the courts—not to a uniformed official who reports, ultimately, to a state government with clear political linkages to the temple authorities in question. The SP must know that Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees the freedom of expression. As long as media outlets are not violating laws of defamation or contempt, they are absolutely within their rights to pursue stories in the public interest.

The real question is this: what is the SP afraid of? If the allegations are baseless, an impartial probe will disprove them. But the tone and timing of his warnings suggest a desire to chill media scrutiny, to cast doubt on reporters before the truth can take shape. That is not law enforcement; that is narrative control.

One must also ask: is there a conflict of interest here? Are the police too close to the power structure of Dharmasthala to act with neutrality? The public perception is already murky. Every attempt to muzzle the press only deepens that suspicion.

The SP must remember: he is not a spokesperson for the accused. He is a servant of the law. His job is not to silence the media but to investigate the crimes reported—however uncomfortable, however powerful the accused.

The people of Dakshina Kannada, and indeed the entire state, are watching. If law enforcement fails to uphold the Constitution, the press must not. And it won’t.