A Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Kerala High Court has reportedly arrested two persons allegedly linked to the Sabarimala gold theft case.
According to officials, the SIT summoned them for questioning at the Kerala crime police station at Eenchakkal in Thiruvananthapuram early on Friday.
According to initial reports, the SIT is yet to record their arrest.
Officials said the persons of interest to the SIT include a jeweler from Bengaluru and a metal factory owner in Chennai. The main accused in the case, Unnikrishnan Potti, hired the firm to restore the gilded copper molds covering the stone carvings in the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple to their original golden luster.
The Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) entrusted Mr. Potti, an insider close to the temple’s administration and its priestly orthodoxy, with the renovation in 2019. Some of the cases donated to the temple by industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998 had frayed and lost their original luster, prompting Mr. Potti to create the gloss. a network of wealthy Ayyappa devotees in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chennai.
The SIT had earlier questioned the jeweler on suspicion that Mr. Potti had sold some of the “leftover” gold from the restoration process to the jeweler. According to records, Mr. Potti sought TDB’s approval to donate a small portion of the “leftover gold” as dowry to an economically disadvantaged bride.
In 2025, TDB Vigilance found that the gold-plated cases returned to the temple after restoration by Mr. Potti weighed significantly less and contained less gold in the alloy than the originals donated to the temple in 1998.
Published – 19 Dec 2025 21:10 IST
