SIT recover masked man Chinnaiah’s mobile phone from Mahesh Thimarodi’s house

MANGALURU: Armed with a search warrant, the special investigation team (SIT), probing the alleged mass burial case in Dharmasthala, on Tuesday searched the house of Mahesh Shetty Thimarodi in Ujire and seized an Android mobile phone belonging to the masked complainant Chinnaiah along with his other belongings including his clothes.

According to police sources, Chinnaiah and the other alleged conspirators had a fallout after not human remains were found at the 17 sites identified by him near Dharmasthala. The other alleged conspirators had snatched his phone when Chinnaiah decided to confess to the police about staging the whole mass burial drama, the sources said.

Chinnaiah had been staying in a room at Mahesh Shetty Thimarodi’s house during the time when the SIT was conducting the exhumations. Some YouTubers too had stayed in the house in different rooms, sources said.

Mahesh and Mohan Shetty Thimarodi.

On Tuesday, the SIT also seized CCTV footage from Mahesh Thimarodi’s house. They also searched the house of his brother Mohan Shetty Thimarodi close by. The media was barricaded about 1 km away from the houses as the police went ahead with the search. The forensic experts searched each and every room in both houses.

The police had taken Chinnaiah to Mahesh Thimarodi’s house during the search. However, Mahesh was not in the house at that time and only his wife and daughter were present. The police are also likely to question the YouTubers who had stayed at his house.

Meanwhile, the police have tracked down the owner of the vehicle in which Chinnaiah travelled from Mahesh’s house to the SIT office every day, accompanied by his lawyers. The Kia Carens car (KA 19 MP 8545) belongs to one Pramod Kumar Shetty, a resident of Ujire, and the police collected information about his like to Mahesh Thimarodi. The police are likely to seize the vehicle and question its owner too.