Ex-temple board chief N Vasu arrested in Sabarimala temple missing gold case

Vasu, who served as the president of the TDB between 2019 and 2021, was produced before a magistrate’s court in Pathanamthitta.

The officer confirmed that Vasu, also a CPI(M) leader, was arraigned as the third accused in the chargesheet filed by the SIT in the case and was subjected to several rounds of questioning before his formal arrest on Tuesday.

Before taking over as the president of TDB in 2019, Vasu served twice as the Devaswom Commissioner in Sabarimala. It was during his term as the Commissioner that the gold-clad sheets covering the ‘dwarapalaka’ idols were handed over to priest-turned-businessman Unnikrishnan Potty under the guise of ‘gold re-plating’ in Chennai. It was found that when the sheets were returned to Sabarimala, they weighed four kilograms less, leading to the conclusion that there was theft of gold from the sheets.