Devdas Desai, A Bible-Thumper, Arrested For Planting Condoms And Hate Literature In Temples, Say He Did It To Make People 'Believe In Jesus'

Mangaluru city police on Wednesday (Dec 29) arrested a 62-year-old man on charges of desecrating over a dozen shrines in and around Mangaluru.

Devdas Desai, a 62-year old resident of Kondana in Kotekar, was arrested, based on CCTV footage.

Mangaluru Commissioner of Police N Shashikumar informed media that Desai, who originally hails from Hubballi, had confessed to desecrating dozens of shrines by planting used condoms and written literature abusing Hindu gods and goddesses.

According to police, Devdas Desai's father John Desai, a government employee, had converted to Christianity. Devdas Desai too followed the same religion and he used to pray at home.

Police also managed to recover materials and inflammatory letters in his handwriting, during a search carried out in Devdas’ house in Kondana.

According to the a police, Desai had moved to Mangaluru in search of a job in 1997 and joined as a driver at the Bunder transport office. He did several odd jobs like working as a taxi driver, an auto-rickshaw driver and finally sold cardboard carton boxes.

On January 2, 2021, Devdas is said to have desecrated the Babbuswamy shrine at Babugudde in south police station limits, by planting two used condoms, fancy currency notes and inflammatory writings on a white paper. Desai followed it up by placing condoms in the offering boxes of he a Dargha and Gurudwaras.

Desai appeared unrepentant about his actions. (Watch video from 25.28)

"In order to ensure that the first step towards salvation was to make people believe in Jesus, I began desecrating shrines to help them realise that their gods were powerless,” Desai said.