Asaram Bapu
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Controversy, sexual assault
September 2013
The Times of India, Jul 12 2015
Mrigank Tiwari
Prime witness in Asaram rape case shot at, dies
Kirpal Singh was shot at n Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Singh is he third witness to have lost his life after the controversy hit the headlines in 2013.
Shahjahanpur superintendent of police Babloo Kumar told TOI, “During investigation, the father of the sexual assault victim, who belongs to this district, had brought the fact to our knowledge that Singh was being threatened by three associates of Asaram.We have filed a case under Section 307 (attempt to murder) at Sadar Bazar police station and the matter is being investigated.“
In his statement recorded before a magistrate before succumbing to his injuries, Singh had said he was being regularly threatened by three associates of Asaram. He had expressed apprehension that they might have been involved in the attack. However, the victim had failed to identify the assailants.
Asaram is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, a native of Shahjahanpur, in his ashram at Jodhpur in August 2013. It may be recalled that the family of the girl was also attacked twice in Jodhpur during court hearings but were saved on both the occasions by alert security personnel. Another prime witness, Devendra Chawla, was shot at earlier.
In all, there have been nine attempts on the lives of various witnesses in the case since Asaram was lodged in Jodhpur jail in September 2013. While a prosecution witness had in February been stabbed to death in a Jodhpur court premises, another was shot in Muzaffarnagar in January 2015.
How Jodhpur police nailed Asaram in 11 days
HIGHLIGHTS
The girl gave a clear map of Asaram’s ashram at Manai village, around 38 km from Jodhpur, where she was assaulted: IPS officer Ajay Pal Lamba
Lamba got nearly 1600 letters in which anonymous people gave him life threats
Self-styled godman Asaram was on Wednesday convicted + by a court here for raping a teenager at his ashram in 2013. Special Judge (SC/ST court) Madhusudhan Sharma delivered the verdict in the Jodhpur Central jail premises.
The girl from Shahajahanpur in Uttar Pradesh was studying at the godman's ashram at Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. The victim had alleged that Asaram called her to his ashram in Manai area near Jodhpur and raped her on the night of August 15, 2013.
The chargesheet against Asaram and four other co-accused Shiva, Shilpi, Sharad and Prakash was filed by the police on November 6, 2013 under various sections of the POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and IPC.
The 77-year-old Asaram was arrested in Indore and brought to Jodhpur on September 1, 2013. He is under judicial custody since September 2, 2013.
How Asaram was nailed
IPS officer Ajay Pal Lamba was in office when a team of Delhi police, along with a minor girl and her father, came to meet him on August 21, 2013. Lamba was then the deputy commissioner of police Jodhpur West. The girl was there to complain against being sexually assaulted allegedly by self-styled guru Asaram.
“At first, I did not believe the family’s version and thought it could be an attempt to defame a big man. Proving me wrong, the girl gave a clear map of Asaram’s ashram at Manai village, around 38-km from Jodhpur, where she was assaulted. How can a person give a map of the room, which is a crime scene, without visiting there? That was the trigger point for our investigation that followed,” recalled Lamba, who is presently posted with the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
“Later we came to know about a Meerut family that had complained about a similar crime by Asaram to the local police. When we went to meet the family we were told it was unwilling to lodge any complaint. That was the second trigger point,” Lamba added.
The police’s masterstroke came on August 31. “We had absolutely no clue about the whereabouts of Asaram. Still we sent a team with five police officers and six commandos to his ashram in Indore (Madhya Pradesh). Simultaneously, we held a press conference in Jodhpur to bluff that he was on our radar. This irked Asaram and he suddenly appeared at Bhopal airport in the afternoon of August 31, 2013. We shared the info with the media persons, who started chasing him. Asaram, without knowing about our team’s presence in the city, reached his Indore Ashram,” Lamba said.
Asaram and his followers attempted to allure the policemen by saying all his property would be transferred. “We got everything from getting huge money to life threats. Amid all this, there was people’s faith that kept us going.” Lamba later got nearly 1600 letters in which anonymous people gave him life threats.
2018: Asaram gets life in prison
April 25, 2018: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
Asaram, who's been in jail since August 31, 2013, was earlier today found guilty of sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl at his ashram in Jodhpur
The girl, who's from Uttar Pradesh, was living in the ashram as a student
He was charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act
Self-styled godman Asaram was sentenced to life in prison - until death - by a special trial court, which earlier found him guilty of raping a minor in 2013.
The two other people convicted in the rape got twenty years each in prison.
The verdict and sentence were both pronounced from Jodhpur Central Jail, where Asaram is lodged. This move was due to the fear of adverse reactions from Asaram's followers, and a repeat of the violence that followed the verdict in the Gurmeet Ram Rahim case case last August.
Asaram, who's been in jail since August 31, 2013, was accused of sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl at his ashram in Manai village near Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The girl, who's from Uttar Pradesh, was living in the ashram as a student. He was charged under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
"Asaram is convicted, we have got justice. I want to thank everyone who supported us in this fight. Now I hope he will get strict punishment," said the father of the rape survivor.
Ahead of the verdict, Jodhpur police imposed Section 144 in the city to prevent violence breaking out in case his followers were unhappy with the verdict .
The self-styled godman is embroiled in a rape case in Gujarat as well. Two Surat-based sisters had lodged separate complaints against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai, accusing them of rape and illegal confinement, among other charges. Over the course of the trial, Asaram unsuccessfully moved 12 bail applications, of which six were rejected by the trial court, three by the Rajasthan high court and three by the Supreme Court.
A special courtroom was set up inside the Jodhpur Central Jail for pronouncement of the verdict, due to security reasons, because Asaram has huge following across the country.
Fearing threat to law and order in the city from Asaram's followers, the Jodhpur police had requested the Rajasthan HC to direct the trial court to pronounce its judgment from inside the jail. After getting the HC's nod, police initiated unprecedented security measures around the city. A 10-day prohibitory order from April 21-30 has also been issued.
"We have cleared up his (Asaram's) ashrams and asked all hotels and guest-houses to not allow any of his followers. We have been keeping an eye on bus and railway stations as well as the airport to ensure that his followers did not enter the city," said Jodhpur DCP Amandeep Singh Kapoor.
The Centre earlier directed Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and UP to tighten security and deploy additional forces. The Shahjahanpur district administration has stepped up security around the rape survivor's house.
All entries to the city have been sealed and control rooms have been activated in neighbouring districts and states.
Police have converted the house of the girl who was sexually assaulted by Asaram into a fortress, in the light of threats to the family. Apart from 10 armed guards, women constables and several intelligence officers are keeping an eye on activities around the house.
The survivor and her family members had already decided not to visit Jodhpur due to security concerns and they have opted to stay inside the house since Tuesday. They met police officers earlier on April 20 and kept themselves away from the media.
"We are taking no chances. No one is allowed to meet the family without verification. Local intelligence teams, Cheetah teams and police teams are keeping an eye," a police official told TOI yesterday.
A saint or a conman?
India Today, August 6, 2015
Uday Mahurkar
From rags to riches to infamy
A saint or a conman? The jury is still out on the life and strife of self-styled godman Asaram Bapu
Allegations of violence, fraud, deception, sexual exploitation, land grabbing, illegal deals, bribery, murders, and finally etched as a saint in primary school textbooks in a state. All this for thousands of crores of rupees and over claims to impart spiritual nirvana to lakhs. That, in short is the life of Asaram Bapu -a rags-to-riches story that is as dramatic as it gets in the real world. Born in Birani village in Nawabshah (now Shaheed Benazirabad) district in Pakistan's Sindh province in 1941, Asaram was named Asumal Thaumal Harpalani. But that was then. Controversy has been his middle name ever since he met Leela Shah Baba, said to be a Gandhian spiritual master of Sindhis, at the latter's ashram in Kutch and subsequently decided that his "calling" was to be a spiritual figure himself. Rising from a mechanic at a bicycle shop in Ahmedabad in his teens to be a giant among the country's impressive list of self-declared spiritual and holy men, Asaram carefully built up his clout among politicians and bureaucrats in the 1980s and '90s, reaching his pinnacle in the first decade of the new millennium. Among those who shared the dais and paid him obeisance were political giants such as former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and H.D. Deve Gowda, former president K.R. Narayanan, veteran leaders of the stature of L.K. Advani, George Fernandes and Farooq Abdullah, and the likes of Uma Bharti, Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, among others. Ads by ZINC
In 2002, within months of taking over the reins of Gujarat from Keshubhai Patel in October 2001, Narendra Modi began his campaign to win the by-election from Rajkot assembly seat by attending a programme of Asaram. But he later distanced himself after the spiritual leader's first brush with notoriety in 2008, when two boys from his Ahmedabad ashram went missing, their mutilated bodies surfacing after a couple of days on the banks of the Sabarmati. Following a public outcry, the Modi government in Gujarat ordered a probe.
But it was only a temporary set-back. Before his arrest in September 2013, Asaram was given the status of a state guest by chief ministers such as Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh, Prem Kumar Dhumal (Himachal Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), and Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab). More recently, he managed to get his name entered in a Moral Science textbook for Class III students of Rajasthan as a saint, sharing space with the likes of Swami Vivekananda, Mother Teresa and Ramakrishna Paramhansa, among others. The state education department has said it will look into the matter.
While he has lakhs of followers, the septuagenarian's proclivity to put his foot in his mouth with bizarre Âstatements has also found an equal number of critics, although far less vocal and aggressive than the former. After the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Asaram seemed not struck by the magnitude of the terror strike that had left the whole world shell-shocked. Instead, he might have found a new hero, going by his praise for the suicide bombers' loyalty towards the then al Qaeda chief. "I salute (Osama) bin Laden. Those are the kind of followers I want," Asaram told his supporters from the pulpit in the Ahmedabad ashram. It was September 14, 2001-just three days after the biggest terror attack the world had come across until then.
Early in January 2013, when the country was still seething in rage following the gang rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi on December 16, 2012, Asaram addressed his Âfollowers in Tonk, Rajasthan. The victim, he said, could have avoided being raped and murdered by addressing her attackers as "brothers" instead of fighting to save her life and honour. When protests began against this shocker of a statement, Asaram called his critics "barking dogs", adding that there should not be stricter penalties for rape, as such laws would be misused by women of "loose character". When the chorus of protest grew too big for it to be brushed aside, he quickly Âapologised, saying his statement had been misinterpreted.
He had begun his life in the 'spiritual' world the same way-traversing truth, fiction and the world in between in a brazen but always assured way. Although he claims to have been taken by Leela Shah Baba as a disciple, some say he was never accepted by his first guru. Says an old disciple of Leela Shah based in Gandhidham, near the mouth of the Gulf of Kutch, "Baba never accepted him because he had severe reservations about him."
Skeletons had begun tumbling out of the Asaram ashram's closets soon after his first brush with Âdisrepute back in 2008-allegations of land-grabbing, sexual exploitation of women disciples in the ashrams, benami investments, cheating, to finally heckling, attacks on and bumping off of witnesses. They might have been a temporary setback, but before long Asaram was back in circulation among the political and business elite-almost each time. As a trial court in Jodhpur gets underway, hearing his case in the prison complex to ward off trouble by his supporters, it appears that run might have come to an end. At least for now.
Assets, unearthed
The Times of India, April 23, 2016
Rs 2,500cr illegal Asaram assets unearthed
The income-tax department in Surat has unearthed Rs 2,500 crore worth of unaccounted transactions of controversial godman Asaram and his son Narayan Sai after 42 bags recovered from Ahmedabad in 2015 were scanned.
These bags contained property documents, CDs, CPUs, hard discs and other materials relating to investments, bank deposits, shares and real estate.
A detailed report on unaccounted transactions and properties of the father-son duo was submitted to higher authorities in Ahmedabad for further action, sources said, adding, tax liability for the unaccounted transactions and income comes to Rs 750 crore.
See also
Godmen and cult leaders: India <> Asaram Bapu <> Dera Sacha Sauda <>Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan <> Honeypreet Insan <> Radhe Guru Maa (Param Shradhey Mamtamai Shri) <> Rampal Singh Jatin @ Rampal, cult leader <>Virender Dev Dixit/ Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya
At a different level, see Sai Baba (Sathya) of Puttaparthi
