The Karnataka High Court on Thursday ordered an interim stay on the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into allegations of multiple murders, rapes, and secret burials in the temple town of Dharmasthala, halting proceedings until November 12.

Justice Mohammad Nawaz passed the interim order on a petition filed by activists Girish Mattanavar, Mahesh Thimmarodi, Jayant T, and Vittal Gowda , who sought quashing of the FIR registered by Dharmasthala Police. The activists had previously supported former sanitation worker C.N. Chinnaiah , whose sensational allegations of mass killings and burials triggered the SIT investigation.

The controversy began when Chinnaiah , later arrested for perjury , claimed that over the past two decades, he had buried several bodies—including those of

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