Asaram case: Self-styled godman’s journey from puritanical preacher to rape convict // Asaram sentenced to life in prison for raping devotee // Police officer who led probe received 2,000 threats
Asaram case: Self-styled godman’s journey from puritanical preacher to rape convict
Asaram not a rapist, he is protector of Sanatan Hindu dharma: former Gujarat DIG Vanzaara
Former Gujarat IPS officer DG Vanzara, a key accused in the alleged fake encounters of Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh, on Wednesday came out in defence of Asaram Bapu.. More on Vanzara
Top cop who led probe in Asaram rape case received 2,000 threat letters, phone calls
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The last five days of Asifa // Kathua, Unnao: Shame on us
Asaram started his own
ashram in Ahmedabad with just ten followers. Asaram’s next big stop was Surat,
where he found a large number of followers among tribals. As his followers
grew, he attracted politicians to his crowded satsangs or religious discourses.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party governments in the state gave
Asaram land to expand his ashrams. His wife Lakshmi Devi, daughter and son
Narayan Sai, who is in jail in a separate rape case, helped him manage the
ashrams and other establishments.
Asaram’s troubles
began in 2008 when the mutilated bodies of two cousins and gurukul mates Dipesh
Vaghela (10) and Abhishek Vaghela (11) were found from the Sabarmati river bank
near his ashram in Motera. Some vital organs were missing from the boys’
bodies. Shantilal Vaghela, Abhishek’s father, staged an indefinite fast
accusing Asaram of killing the boys for black magic rituals. He ended his fast
after the administration appointed an inquiry commission by retired judge DK
Trivedi.
Gujarat police booked
seven of Asaram’s followers in 2009 for the death of the two children and filed
a chargesheet against them in September 2012. Asaram was not implicated in this
case and the BJP government is yet to table the inquiry commission’s report. Asaram
was also hit by a land-grabbing controversy in Surat. The matter is still
sub-judice.
As he fell from grace,
the BJP-led state government’s stance over his land holdings reflected its
changing equation with him. The state government decided in 2009 to take back
the land given to his Ahmedabad ashram. A year later, then revenue minister
Anandiben Patel informed the state assembly that the nearly 68,000sqm plot had
been taken back. Finally, Asaram was
arrested after a 16-year-old girl accused him sexually assaulting her at a
religious retreat near Jodhpur in August 2013. Two sisters from Surat came
forward to register similar cases against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai just
months later. The sisters, who lived at Asaram’s ashram in Gujarat between 1997
and 2006, lodged separate complaints against the godman and his son, accusing
them of repeated rape and illegal confinement, among other charges. Five
others, including Asaram’s wife and daughter, were also charged by the police
of abetting the rapes.Asaram not a rapist, he is protector of Sanatan Hindu dharma: former Gujarat DIG Vanzaara
Former Gujarat IPS officer DG Vanzara, a key accused in the alleged fake encounters of Ishrat Jahan and Sohrabuddin Sheikh, on Wednesday came out in defence of Asaram Bapu.. More on Vanzara
Asaram sentenced to life in prison for raping devotee
Asaram Bapu, as he is known to his followers, has a large support base in Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat, where he has been booked in a similar case. Two Surat-based sisters, who stayed at Asaram’s ashram in Gujarat between 1997 and 2006, lodged separate cases against Asaram and his son, Narayan Sai, accusing them of repeated rape and illegal confinement, among other charges. As trials in these cases progressed, three key witnesses died and other witnesses and families of victims were attacked or received death threats. The truth has won. It shows that if the law works impartially, even persons from the weakest sections of the society can take on the most influential ones and get justice,” said Ajay Lamba, the IPS officer who supervised the investigation...
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/asaram-convicted-of-raping-minor-girl-at-his-jodhpur-ashram/story-7qtjtbp7QJJvj52nP3TD9O.htmlAsaram Bapu, as he is known to his followers, has a large support base in Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat, where he has been booked in a similar case. Two Surat-based sisters, who stayed at Asaram’s ashram in Gujarat between 1997 and 2006, lodged separate cases against Asaram and his son, Narayan Sai, accusing them of repeated rape and illegal confinement, among other charges. As trials in these cases progressed, three key witnesses died and other witnesses and families of victims were attacked or received death threats. The truth has won. It shows that if the law works impartially, even persons from the weakest sections of the society can take on the most influential ones and get justice,” said Ajay Lamba, the IPS officer who supervised the investigation...
Top cop who led probe in Asaram rape case received 2,000 threat letters, phone calls
Senior police officer Ajay Pal Lamba
received more than 2,000 threatening letters and hundreds of phone calls while
he was overseeing the investigation in the rape case against self-styled godman
Asaram. “The letters carried
abuses and threatened they would kill my family if anything happened to Asaram.
My phone would not stop ringing and I stopped receiving calls from unknown
numbers. The letters stopped only when I shifted to Udaipur,” says Lamba, a
2005 batch Indian Police Service officer. Lamba, now the
superintendent of police (anti-corruption bureau) in Jodhpur, stopped sending
his daughter to school for a while and his wife would not step out of their
house.
Asaram failed to
appear before the team of policemen from Jodhpur and his arrest was a
monumental task for the department. “When my 11-member
team went to deliver a summon notice to the Asaram at his ashram in Madhya
Pradesh, they faced a mob of about 8,000 people. My team was shoved and it took
them 10 hours just to be able to deliver that piece of paper,” Lamba says. Lamba says the media
coverage dampened the morale of the supporters to an extent and the local
police managed to take control of the situation in Indore. The police team from
Jodhpur entered the ashram on August 30, 2013, to arrest him.
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The last five days of Asifa // Kathua, Unnao: Shame on us
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