The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the complaint of burial of over 100 bodies, on Tuesday carried out digging on a part of the large site no. 13 in Dharmasthala, but did not find any skeletal remains. The digging in other parts of the site will continue on Wednesday.
The excavation at site no. 13, which is among the 13 ‘burial’ sites identified by the complainant, was a complex one, as this plain land close to the vented dam has seen a lot of changes over the years. Loads of construction debris have also been dumped. Hence, the SIT had decided to scan the site area using ground penetrating radar (GPR), to get a clear map of the contours of the land beneath and detect substances lying inside.
The SIT excavating a part of site no. 13 in Dharmasthala on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The site was scanned using the GPR for a few minutes on Monday. On Tuesday, workers cleared shrubs grown on site no. 13 and also from the adjoining site. Then the GPR, mounted on a drone, was used to scan the whole area. From 3 p.m., an earth mover was used to remove mud from one spot. After reaching about 10 ft., water started to seep in, and the personnel used pumpsets to pump out slushy water.
