Chennai: Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today (Dec 18, 2004) said that the Kanchi Seer, Jayendra Saraswathi, who has been arrested in connection with the Sankararaman murder case, should be treated with honour and dignity in prison.

"I do not want to comment on his arrest. But I fully endorse Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's stand that the Seer should be treated with honour and dignity," he told reporters in Chennai.

He described the VHP's (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) charge that Congress President Sonia Gandhi was behind the Seer's arrest as "perverse, meaningless and absurd".