Bengaluru, Feb. 5 -- The Karnataka high court has directed the state government to account for its handling of 74 cases concerning allegedly unnatural deaths reported in Dharmasthala between 1990 and 2021, asking officials to clarify the status of each case and outline steps taken and planned.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and justice CM Poonacha issued the order while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Kusumavati, whose daughter Soujanya, a student, was gang-raped and murdered in Dharmasthala in 2012.

The petition draws attention to claims by a former sanitation worker, CN Chinnaiah, who earlier alleged that he was coerced over several years into burying the bodies of women and minors in and around t...