Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha Friday told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi was being treated with utmost care and dignity befitting his stature while in jail.
Responding to the prime minister's letter to her Thursday advising that the seer should be treated with extreme care and consideration, Jayalalitha asserted he was indeed being treated with utmost care.
"The state government is taking and will be taking utmost care to ensure the physical well-being of the seer," Jayalalitha assured Manmohan Singh, who had asked the Tamil Nadu government to take all the care for his physical well-being.
"While in custody, it has been ensured that he is treated with care and caution considering his age and health condition."
He was being treated with utmost dignity and consideration befitting his religious status, she added.
The chief minister informed the prime minister that a team of doctors has been monitoring his health parameters and had reported that the pontiff's health condition was quite satisfactory.
The Shankaracharya himself had stated before a magistrate that he was being treated well, she pointed out.
Jayendra Saraswathi, the Shankaracharya of the revered Kanchipuram mutt or monastic order, was arrested Nov 11 in connection with the murder of a temple official A. Sankararaman.
The prime minister's letter had followed the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) criticism that the pontiff's arrest and treatment in custody was an attack on the Hindu community.
Jayalalitha wrote: "As you have rightly observed, the due processes of law must not be interfered with and law must be allowed to take its own course."
The state police, she continued, had arrested the Shankaracharya after "careful and thorough investigation of the ghastly and brutal" murder of Sankararaman.
Jayalalitha said further investigation by police led to his arrest in another case of "murderous assault".
"The investigation is being handled by a special investigation team with extreme care and caution to ensure its thoroughness."
--Indo-Asian News Service