Thiruvananthapuram, Nov. 21 -- The Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the case of misappropriation of gold assets from the Sabarimala temple arrested former Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader A Padmakumar on Thursday.

Padmakumar, also a former MLA from Konni in Pathanamthitta district, was arraigned by the SIT as the eighth accused in the case.

He was serving as the president of the TDB in 2019 when the administrative body first permitted the first accused and businessman Unnikrishnan Potty to take the gold-clad sheets covering the Dwarapalaka idols for replating in Chennai.

The HC recently found that when the sheets, already plated with gold in 1998, were returned to the...