Tamil Nadu, India
One of the Hindu religion’s top five clerics confessed to ordering the murder of a temple worker, prosecutors claimed this week. Jayendra Saraswathi, who heads the 2,500-year-old Kanchipuram Temple in Tamil Nadu and is revered by millions of Hindus, allegedly broke down after three days of interrogation and admitted the crime on videotape. The temple worker had been writing anonymous letters accusing the cleric of various minor infractions, such as allowing women into the temple. “In a moment of weakness, I ordered his murder,” the 71-year-old Saraswathi said on the tape. His defense lawyers said he was tortured into a false confession.
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