Dharmasthala in the Crosshairs: How a Temple’s Legacy Is Tarnished by a Web of Lies

For centuries, Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala has stood as a beacon of faith, charity, and service. But in recent months, its sanctity has come under unprecedented attack - not from proven wrongdoing, but from a carefully spun web of misinformation.

The most prominent example is the so-called 'Ananya Bhat' case - a sensational social media story alleging that a Kasturba Medical College student disappeared in Dharmasthala in 2003, her case allegedly buried by powerful forces. This tale resurfaced when a whistleblower, a former sanitation contractor who worked in Dharmasthala from 1995 to 2014, claimed he had been forced to dispose of bodies linked to criminal activities. He recently revisited alleged burial sites, photographed skeletal remains, and submitted the images to authorities, sparking an SIT probe.

It was only after this that Sujatha Bhat, claiming to be Ananya's mother and a former CBI officer, came forward after decades of silence. She attempted to link her daughter's disappearance to the whistleblower's claims. But the facts tell a different story. Kasturba Medical College records confirm no student named 'Ananya Bhat' has ever been enrolled. There are no credible witnesses, no verified documentation, and no trace of the case in police or media archives from 2003.

The narrative's amplification owes much to activist Mahesh Shetty Thimarodi, a man with a documented history of disputes with Dharmasthala's administration. His aggressive campaign, masked as a people's movement, has instead sown distrust, confusion, and communal tension. Allegations from a disgruntled ex-contractor with a history of misconduct add no credibility, yet in the digital age, these claims spread faster than fact-checks can catch up.

What's at stake here is bigger than a single fabricated story. When unverified claims are repeated, shared, and politicised, centuries-old institutions risk being judged not by evidence, but by viral outrage. Dharmasthala's image is being tarnished not by truth, but by an industrial-scale disinformation campaign that thrives on public gullibility and social media virality.

The lesson is simple: before we accept every trending story as fact, we must ask - who benefits from this outrage, and what's the evidence? In Dharmasthala's case, the answers point not to justice, but to a calculated attempt to erode trust in one of Karnataka's most respected institutions.