Four people, including two BJP officials, have been taken into custody by the Mayiladuthurai police in Tamil Nadu on charges of threatening and blackmailing the pontiff of the Dharmapuram Adheenam Mutt.
According to reports, BJP officials threatened to make public “obscene” audio and video recordings of Masillamani Desiga Gnanasambanda Swamigal, the mutt’s 27th Gurumaha Sannithanam.
BJP Mayiladuthurai district president K. Agoram, district secretary Vignesh, and secretary of the Thanjavur North Youth Wing Vinoth were among those detained. The FIR was opened in response to a complaint that the pontiff’s brother and helper, Viruthagiri, filed on February 25.
The Adheenam was threatened and blackmailed, according to the police’s First Information Report, by Vignesh, Vinoth, and two other people, who threatened to post “obscene” audio and video tapes of the pontiff on social media if the mutt head didn’t pay up.
In his case, Viruthagiri claimed that Agoram, Kodiyarasu—the founder of the Kalaimagal school—and attorney Jayachandran had given Vinoth and Vignesh orders to follow. According to Viruthagiri, the accused attempted to “strangle” him and demanded a “lump sum.”
The Mayiladuthurai police had seven people under arrest, one of whom was a Senthil who was employed by Dharmapuram Adheenam. Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 307 (attempt to murder), 389 (placing a person in dread of being accused of a crime), 506 (ii) (criminal intimidation), and 120 B (anyone is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence) of the Indian Penal Code were the sections under which the complaint was filed.
The four people who were taken into custody, along with the BJP officials, were placed under 15 days of remand.
Two separate scandals involving the Dharapuram Adheenam occurred following the DMK’s election in 2021. The pontiff’s palanquin journey, known in Tamil as pattina pravesam, caused uproar the first time around. The pattina pravesam event was banned by the Mayiladuthurai district government, which described it as a “violation of human rights.” When the controversy arose, state-level BJP leaders defended the seer, arguing that it is a rite and not a violation of human rights. The DMK government came under fire from the BJP and a number of other adheenams in the state for attempting to trample on customs.
A second issue then erupted when the seer declared that he would sit in an indefinite fast in protest of the district administration’s actions against the free hospital that the group was running.
It should be remembered that Dharmapurm aadheenam was one of the 21 mutt leaders (seers) from Tamil Nadu who attended the new parliament’s inauguration in Delhi after Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed a Sengol from the state.
