Thiruvananthapuram: A senior official of the Travancore Devaswom Board was held on Thursday in connection with the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple gold heist.

Former administrative officer of Sabarimala, Murari Babu was arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by Kerala High Court. Babu, who was serving as deputy commissioner, was recently placed under suspension.

Babu had recorded the gold plated panels of the 'dwarapalaka' idols and door frames as copper in records while handing over those to Bengaluru-based Malayali Unnikrishnan Potti in 2019 and 2025 for gold plating. This was suspected to be done as part of the conspiracy to loot the gold coatings from the panel that were done with sponsorship or industrialist Vijay Mallya in 1998-99.

Babu earlier tried to justify that the

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