Sidharth Deb - A Chilling Primer to the Case Against Asaram Bapu. Three witnesses dead already..
Asaram Bapu has been in the headlines for the wrong reasons
for years now, both before and after his arrest in September 2013. The latest
amongst these incidents connected to the godman is the death of a third witness
in criminal cases against him – Kripal Singh, who was shot by two
motorcycle-borne assailants in Puwayan in the Shajahanpur district of Uttar
Pradesh.
Even by the murky standards of India’s self-styled spiritual
gurus, the allegations whirling around the 74-year-old Asaram are exceptional:
suspected black magic and human sacrifice; the deaths of four young male
students of the residential schools in his ashrams, of which the bodies of two
were found severely burned and mutilated, their limbs and internal organs
missing; sexual assault of a minor girl under the pretext of ‘exorcism’;
allegations of repeated rape and illegal confinement of two sisters, supposedly
with the complicity of the godman’s son, the latter also having been accused of
raping the victims; attacks in four states against nine witnesses in criminal
cases against the godman, leading to the death of three, of which one was a
former personal aide of the guru and another his former cook; threats and
intimidation of complainants, witnesses and their families, apart from judges
and investigating officers in multiple states.
These do not include other alleged crimes that seem to be
associated with Asaram – the suspicious deaths of at least two ashram
employees, rumours of widespread sexual exploitation of female devotees, nearly
a dozen cases of land encroachment across states, and pervasive financial
irregularity. All of it apparently carried out brazenly thanks to the blessings
of a higher power – the political elite in his home state and elsewhere.
Who is Asaram Bapu?
Born Asumal Sirumalani in pre-Independence Sindh in 1941,
Asaram moved along with his family to Ahmedabad following Partition. The young
man who once drove a tanga in Ajmer carrying pilgrims to the
Dargah, and spent many years wandering pilgrimage spots, was eventually taken
into a religious order in 1964, thus acquiring the name he is now known by.
Starting out in a hut in Motera on the banks of the
Sabarmati in the early 1970s, Asaram’s religious empire grew to become one of
the largest in the country, today consisting of 400 minor and major ashrams
spread across multiple Indian states and abroad, and attracting thousands of
devoted followers.
Not surprisingly, political
leaders across parties have at one point or the other sought the
guru’s blessings, if not been outright followers; the list includes former
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Chief
Ministers Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh and Prem Kumar Dhumal, all from
the BJP, as well as Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath and Motilal Vora of the
Congress. Narendra Modi had appeared on stage with Asaram on several occasions in
his Gujarat days, although after the allegations surfaced, he warned other
BJP leaders against defending the godman.
There is no doubt that Asaram commanded great loyalty. One
well-known devotee, D.G. Vanzara, the jailed ‘encounter specialist’ of the
Gujarat police, is said to have insisted on drinking milk only if it was
brought from the godman’s Motera ashram. According to some reports,
Vanzara’s bitter missive from prison accusing the then Gujarat Chief Minister
Narendra Modi of using and then abandoning him was said to have been prompted
by the news of his spiritual guru’s arrest. “My god (Modi) could not save my
guru (Asaram). How will he save me?” Vanzara had written in his September 2013
letter.
The Jodhpur rape case
In August, 2013 the Delhi police filed a case against Asaram
on a complaint made by a 16-year-old girl, who alleged that the religious
godman sexually assaulted her in his Jodhpur ashram. In her complaint, the
girl, who hails from Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, said that she was asked to
perform oral sex and was also touched inappropriately during what was supposed
to be a ceremony to cure her from evil spirits. The incident took place on 15th
August, 2013.
On August 31, 2013 Asaram Bapu was arrested and flown to
Jodhpur, where he was imprisoned. Investigators also alleged that Asaram
video-recorded his sexual acts with several women so as to blackmail them into
granting him further sexual favours. He was booked under Sections
342, 376, 506 and 509 of the IPC, as well as under Section 8 of the Protection
of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and sections 23 and 26 of the
Juvenile Justice Act.
Asaram has remained in jail since then, his bail pleas
having been rejected six times, despite having been represented by two of the
most prominent lawyer-politicians in the country, Subramanian Swamy and Ram
Jethmalani. One of the arguments made by Jethmalani in court stretched to the
absurd; for instance, that the victim had a “chronic disease which draws a
woman to a man”.
Meanwhile, the victim’s family says that they have been
receiving threats from Asaram’s followers to drop the charges against their
spiritual leader. In September 2013, it came to light that the Sessions Judge
Manoj Kumar Vyas, under whom this case was being heard, had received threats
warning of “consequences” if he did not grant bail to Asaram. The Jodhpur
police also booked three of Asaram’s followers for issuing death threats to the
SHO in charge of security during the godman’s hearings.
In February, 2014 the judge framed the charges in the case,
retaining all except Section 26 of the Juvenile Justice Act, which pertains to
exploitation of juveniles/child labour. Taken together, the various charges
could attract a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
In December, 2014 the brother of the victim was threatened
by Asaram’s followers that if he did not settle the on-going case, then the
lives of the family would be placed at risk. An FIR was lodged against the two
men who made the threats i.e. Narayan Pandey (29) and Pradeep Mishra (30). In February 2015, Rahul K. Sachan, a witness in the case was
stabbed outside the Jodhpur court moments after giving his statement. The
attacker, Satyanarain, was later identified as an aide of Asaram.
In April this year, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy met
Asaram in jail and afterwards announced that he would argue on the guru’s
behalf as denial of bail to him was a “violation of his fundamental rights”. On
June 20, 2015 Swamy argued in court that the entire case was fabricated and,
therefore, that Asaram deserved bail, but the bail application was rejected by
Judge Vyas.
On July 8 2015, Sudha Pathak, a witness, turned hostile.
Four days later, Kripal Singh, a key witness in the case, was shot at and
eventually died. In his dying declaration, he gave the police the names of
three persons who were later identified as followers of Asaram. Kripal had also
said that the three had approached him in the Jodhpur court and offered him a
hefty sum if he were to withdraw from the case.
The Surat double rape cases
In October 2013, two sisters from Surat came forward to say
that they were raped by Asaram and his son Narayan Sai. The elder of the two
sisters alleged that she was raped by Asaram at an Ahmedabad ashram and the
younger one alleged the same against his son in Surat. Narayan Sai was arrested
In December 2013 and the police chargesheet against him was filed on March 1,
2014.
As in the earlier sexual assault case, the Surat cases have
also seen a spate of attacks on witnesses. Soon after the March 2014 chargesheet, the husband of the
younger sister was stabbed by an unknown attacker within the confines of a
hospital compound.
On March 17, 2014 a witness by the name of Dinesh
Bhavchandani, aged 39, was attacked with acid by two men on a motorbike. He had
made a statement against Asaram in the case. On May 24, 2014 Amrut Prajapati,
a former aide of Asaram and key witness in this case, was shot at and later
succumbed to his injuries. He had been Asaram’s personal physician for over ten
years but left the Ashram after receiving threats from members of the ashram.
He also testified that videos were used as blackmail to sexually coerce women
members of the ashram.
On January 11, 2015 Asaram’s former cook and a key witness
in this case, Akhil Gupta (35) was shot dead by two unknown people. He had
testified that he had spotted the two rape victims entering Asaram’s room. In May 2015 Mahendra Chawla, the former personal secretary
of Narayan Sai, was shot and injured by two unknown attackers. He had provided
detailed testimony against both Asaram and Sai, including allegations of financial
irregularity, intimidation and sexual exploitation of devotees. Chawla is one
of three former Asaram associates who were key prosecution witnesses in the
case; the others being Akhilesh Gupta and Amrut Prajapati, both of whom were
killed.
Modus operandi similar
Although Asaram has consistently denied the allegations
against him as well as any connection to the attacks on witnesses, the pattern
that emerges from the multiple suggests these are far from random acts
perpetrated by emotionally disturbed followers.
First, the pattern is almost always the same – it starts
with death threats (usually also involving family members of the witness),
followed by bribe offers, and if that too fails, violent assault or an attempt
on the witness’s life.
Secondly, the modus operandi of the attacks on witnesses
also reveals a pattern. The attacks on Akhil Gupta and Kripal Singh were
carried out by motorcycle-borne assailants, firing .12 bore country-made
pistols aimed at the spinal cord from a close range. In fact, the
police in Muzaffarnagar and Shajahanpur have started a joint investigation to
ascertain whether the same hit team was behind both attacks.
Meanwhile, other witnesses in the cases continue to be
threatened. Recently, police protection for Arvind Bajpai, a crucial witness in
the Jodhpur case, was escalated following the killing of Kripal Singh. The
Principal of Saraswati Shishu Inter College in Shahjahanpur had testified in
court that the victim was a minor, and had earlier received death threats over
the phone.
A few days after Kripal Singh’s death, two woman police
officers of the Ahmedabad police investigating the Surat rapes received a
threat in the form of a letter, supposedly sent by Asaram’s followers. It was reported on July 24 2015 that the UP Police had
ordered a CBI probe into the death of Kripal Singh due to the peculiarities of
the situation. Asaram and his son might still be behind bars, but the
inability of the authorities to stop the killings of witnesses and the threats
and attacks on their family members raises serious questions about how the
cases will eventually end up.
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