Sabarimala gold theft case: SIT detains former TDB president P.S. Prasanth for questioning

Published 23 July 2026 · local

The Kerala High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Sabarimala gold theft case has detained former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president P.S. Prasanth for

The Kerala High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Sabarimala gold theft case has detained former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president P.S. Prasanth for questioning at his house in Thiruvananthapuram early Thursday (July 23, 2026). The purported detention comes hours after Mr Prasanth posted on Facebook that his arrest in the case was imminent. Nevertheless, there was no official word on whether the Crime Branch team has arrested Mr Prasanth or indicted him in the case. His immediate whereabouts remained unknown. Notably, Mr Prasanth’s supposed custody comes nearly three weeks after the SIT questioned Unnikrishnan Potti, the prime accused in the case, as part of its inquiry into the “questionable circumstances” that led the TDB to resend the temple’s gold-plated copper panels ensconcing stone sculptures to Smart Creations, a metal works factory in Chennai, for electroplating in 2025. According to officials, the SIT suspects that the TDB administration, headed by Mr Prasanth under the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, cited “non-existent defects” as a pretext to dispatch the gold-plated copper panels flanking the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum to Smart Creations to allegedly cover up an “earlier pilferage” of the gold element in the alloy.

They said the SIT was sceptical of the decision’s “moral correctness”, given that the TDB had sent the same panels to Smart Creations for repair and refurbishment in 2019. The firm then issued a warranty, guaranteeing that the panels would retain their golden sheen for at least 40 years. The firm also promised to repair or replace the panels free of charge if the warranty failed. The SIT was also reportedly investigating whether there was any prior criminal intention to defraud the public-owned temple by issuing the warranty in Mr Potti’s name, and entirely omitting TDB, the temple’s statutory custodian, from the agreement. For one, according to officials, Smart Creations had issued a 40-year warranty in Mr Potti’s name, and the allegedly ambiguous wording of the agreement tacitly insulated the firm from legal liability for any physical damage during the repair and electroplating processes.

Earlier, the SIT enlisted the help of the Metallurgical Library under the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research to compare the original gold covering installed in 1989 with those returned by Smart Creations after electroplating, purportedly to establish a baseline for forensic comparison and possibly to evaluate any “pilferage” of gold. An official said the possibly incriminating findings in the report, submitted in a closed cover to the High Court’s Devaswom Board Bench, might have impelled the SIT’s latest move. Prasanth claims innocence in FB post Meanwhile, Mr Prasanth has protested his innocence in the Facebook post. He said the TDB had transported the panels to Smart Creations under police escort and the artefacts were at no point in Mr Potti’s custody. However, Mr Potti’s presence at the factory was legally imperative, since Smart Creations had issued the warrant in his name.