Indian police exhume human remains in mass-burial investigation

A former cleaner told the police in July he had been forced by superiors to dispose of hundreds of bodies. The case was drawing media attention across India. - Photo: Reuters

BENGALURU, (India): Indian police have exhumed human remains in a temple town in the country's south, officials said, as part of an investigation into allegations that hundreds of murder and rape victims were secretly buried there from around the mid-1990s.

The probe centres on Dharmasthala, home to an 800-year-old temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in the state of Karnataka and is drawing headlines in media nationwide.