A temple in India is under investigation after a whistleblower came forward to police alleging he was threatened into burying hundreds of women and girls who were sexually assaulted before being murdered.
The 48-year-old man is a former employee at Dharmasthala, a pilgrimage village in the southwestern state of Karnataka, per Al Jazeera, Deutsche-Welle and local outlet India Today.
He has not been publicly named.
The man, who came forward on July 3, told police he worked at the temple from 1995 before leaving in 2014, Al Jazeera and DW reported.
During this time, he alleges, he was threatened into burying hundreds of bodies, many of the minor girls, according to the complaint he filed with police, which was obtained by DW and Al Jazeera.
“Many female corpses were found without clothes or undergarments," he wrote in the complaint. "Some corpses showed clear signs of sexual assault and violence; injuries or strangulation marks indicating violence were visible on those bodies."
The former sanitation worker first noticed something odd about the temple soon after he joined, when he noticed bodies of women and girls would wash up by the river near the temple, he told police, according to Al Jazeera and DW.
At first, he thought they were cases of suicide, but he soon allegedly noticed the bodies didn't have clothes and had signs of sexual assault.
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