Jodhpur: Jodhpur Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Court on Wednesday sentenced self-styled Godman Asaram to life imprisonment as he was convicted of raping a minor girl at his Ashram in Jodhpur.
The special court also convicted four other accused in the 2013 case and sentenced them jail term of 20-years.
Asaram Bapu, as he is known to his followers, was charged with raping a 16-year old girl from Uttar Pradesh’s Shahajahanpur in 2013. Arrested in September that year, he has been in Jodhpur Central Jail since then.
Authorities asked three states to be on alert and imposed prohibitory orders in sensitive areas, anticipating trouble by legions of followers of the 77-year old who runs about 400 ashrams across the country.
On Wednesday morning, judge Madhusudan Sharma reached the special court in Jodhpur around 8am. He and his staff shifted to a courtroom on the jail premises, where the order was delivered.
The special court had on April 7 reserved its judgment for April 25 after the final arguments that stretched for over five months. The state had appealed in the high court that the verdict be pronounced in the jail premises to prevent any breach of peace.
The Union home ministry told Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana to take steps to prevent a repeat of the large-scale violence that singed Haryana and Punjab after the conviction of another self-styled godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim, in a rape case last August.
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.