Five persons were arrested by the Pampa police for pouring a liquid on the gold-covered base (Panchavargathara) of the newly installed temple mast at Sabarimala on Sunday afternoon.
The incident occurred immediately after the culmination of the installation ceremony. The craftsmen of the new mast at the Sannidhanam have identified the liquid as mercury. The sheen of gold in the affected portion has dulled.
The police traced the culprits from Pampa from a CCTV footage showing them pouring the liquid on the temple mast. The arrested have been identified as Sathyanarayana Reddy, 50; Sudhakar Reddy, 48; Dandamudi Venkita Rao, 38; D.N.L. Choudhary, 25, and Uma Maheswar Reddy, all from Vuyyuru. A small bottle of liquid was recovered from them. All the five have been remanded in the district jail in Pathanamthitta.
Superintendent of Police Satheesh Bino told The Hindu that the five persons had stated that it was a custom in their village to pour the liquid, which they named Paadarasom, along with Navadhanya. Mr. Bino said the accused had claimed that they had been undertaking the Sabarimala pilgrimage for several years.
Meanwhile, experts from the Forensic Laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram inspected the site on Sunday night and collected samples. The master craftsmen washed the affected portion with acid to remove the mercury late in the night. The rectification work was completed early on Monday. The temple mast, covered with gold worth ₹3.2 crore, was sponsored by a Hyderabad-based company, Phoenix Infratech Private Limited.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB) too has started an investigation into the incident. IB sources told The Hindu that a special team was probing the antecedents of the five persons, especially in the backdrop of the threat faced by Sabarimala from certain extremist groups.
