People listen to a speech by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (not in photo) at a hunger strike rally in New Delhi on Nov. 23 to protest the arrest of Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi. (Photo: AFP)

CHENNAI : A court in Tamil Nadu on Nov. 26 extended the judicial remand of eminent spiritual leader Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi of Kanchipuram by 15 days till Dec. 10.

The police have charged the 70-year-old pontiff with involvement in the murder of a former accountant of the Shankaracharya’s Kanchipuram mutt, Sankara Raman.

The Shankaracharya was arrested on Nov. 11 in Andhra Pradesh and was sent on a 15-day judicial custody before being remanded in police custody on Nov. 19.

Even as the Shankaracharya alleged that the police had “fabricated evidence” to falsely implicate him, he was charged with a second murder on Nov. 23 and the police claimed to have enough evidence for filing a third criminal case against him.

A judicial magistrate’s court in Kanchipuram declined to extend the Shankaracharya’s police custody, even as the Madras High Court maintained that there was nothing illegal about the police remand.

The Madras High Court had rejected the Shankaracharya’s bail application on Nov. 20. The pontiff’s lawyers said they will contest the order in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, two of the accused in the Sankara Raman murder case –– Kathiravan and Rajini –– who allegedly committed the murder at the behest of the Shankaracharya, told a court on Nov. 24 that the police had tortured them and extracted false statements.

Kathiravan and Rajini told a magistrate that the police had compelled him to endorse their version about the murder of Sankara Raman at a temple on Sept. 3. Rajini said his wife had sent a telegram to the chief judicial magistrate seeking relief. The police have 17 accused in custody, apart from the 71-year-old seer. The prosecution claimed that five of the accused in their custody were key people who had committed the killing.

The pontiff’s arrest continued to trigger vehement protests from the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), religious organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and eminent spiritual leaders across the country as well as abroad.

BJP president L.K. Advani on Nov. 20 observed a day’s hunger strike to protest the arrest of the Shankaracharya, even as the party snapped ties with Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK party over the issue. “This is an assault on our dharma!” said BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj, as she protested the treatment meted out to one of the most revered Hindu seers.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a letter to Tamil Nadu Chief Miniser J. Jayalalitha urged her on Nov. 25 to exercise “extreme care and consideration” as her government probed murder charges against the Shankaracharya. Singh maintained that the law should take its course even as he expressed concern about the health of the Shankaracharya.

“Whereas it is extremely important that due process of law must not be interfered with and law must be allowed to take its own course, the investigations involving his eminence are to be conducted with extreme care and consideration,” he said. Saying that the pontiff was keeping “indifferent” health, he asked the state government to take all measures to ensure his physical well being.