The manager of the Kanchi mutt, R Sundaresa Iyer, was on Saturday remanded to judicial custody till January 7.

The Special Investigation Team of the Tamil Nadu police had on Friday night arrested Iyer, a confidant of incarcerated Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, in connection with the murder of temple official Sankararaman and the assault on former mutt employee Radhakrishnan.

Iyer is the first mutt official to be arrested after the seer, who was taken into custody on November 11 in connection with the murder case.

The SIT had summoned Iyer for questioning at around 1900 IST on Friday. Four or five mutt employees accompanying him were told to stay out. Around 2200 IST, the police told Iyer's lawyers that he had been placed under arrest.

With this, the total number of arrests made in connection with the Sankararaman murder case has gone up to 23.

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Iyer is among the three prominent persons arrested, the other two being the seer and Appu alias Krishnaswamy.

Iyer was administering the mutt after the Shankaracharya's arrest. He used to meet the seer at Vellore Central Prison quite often.

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