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Asaram is not alone; here’s a list of India’s notorious godmen

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Asaram Bapu has been sentenced to life in jail along with two others for raping a minor in 2013 in Rajasthan. Even after the court, which announced the verdict inside the Jodhpur jail which houses Asaram, found the godman and his accomplices Shilpi and Sharath guilty of committing the crime his followers maintained that he was ‘not guilty’ and that this is a ‘conspiracy against baba‘.

Godmen in India hold the status of spiritual figures whose oligarchy is backed by their hundreds and thousands of devotees. In a land where sanctimony is hailed, without doubt, these godmen hold an unflinching grip despite allegations of rape, assault, murder and fraud.

NewsMobile brings you a ringside view of India’s godmen in the eye of a storm.

Asaram Bapu

Asaram Bapu has over 425 ashrams and more than 50 gurukuls all over India, with following beyond the country’s borders.

The 77-year-old ‘guru’ was arrested following a complaint filed by a 16-year-old girl on Aug 20, 2013. The minor girl accused Asaram of sexually assaulting her at his ashram near Jodhpur.

The Supreme Court also said that unless the critical witnesses in the case are examined, he would not be set free on bail. The godman filed a number of bail petitions, a total of 12 applications were rejected by the trial court, the Rajasthan High Court, and the Supreme Court.

Controversies

1: Commenting on the December 16 Delhi gang-rape incident, Asaram suggested that the victim was equally responsible for the crime. He said the girl could have called her assailants brothers and begged them to stop. His comments invited sharp criticism from across the political spectrum and from women’s activists.

ALSO READ: Rapist Asaram gets life imprisonment for raping a minor

2: The ministry of corporate affairs said it had received complaints against him and his son in an alleged 700-acre land-grabbing case and the serious frauds investigation office is looking into the matter.

3: Asaram and his son were also investigated in the mysterious deaths of two boys whose decomposed bodies were found from the banks of Sabarmati River near his ashram in 2008.

Ram Rahim

A Special CBI court announced a sentence of 20 years for Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on August 28, 2017. He was convicted for raping two sadhvis. Ram Rahim will spend 20 years behind bars; 10 years sentence for raping two Sadhvis to run consecutively, not concurrently.

His grip on his followers is such that they went on a rampage in Panchlula, leaving many dead and injured, after the sentence was announced.

Controversies

  1. Two murder charges against him. It is alleged that he killed journalist Ram Chander Chatrapati in 2001 and sect manager Ranjit Singh in July 2002.
  2. In 2002 a follower claim that he had ordered 400 men to undergo castration to be closer to God.

 

RAMPAL

Arrested on 18 November 2004, after the Haryana police found bodies of five women and an 18-month-old child at his Satlok ashram in Hisar where they had gone to arrest him in regard to another case. Thousands of his followers fought a pitched battle with the police, and it took 20,000 security personnel to finally capture him the next day. Sant Rampal had earlier been jailed for 22 months after he was charged with the murder of a man who died when his followers clashed with those of the Arya Samaj on 12 July 2006.

Controversies

1. An FIR was registered against Rampal and his followers for forgery after a complaint was filed against him a day after the clash with Arya Samajis in 2006. It was alleged that Satlok Ashram at Karontha village was built on a piece of land obtained through forgery.

2. An FIR was registered against seven supporters of Rampal, including a woman, on May 5, 2013. Anil Kumar, a resident of Atawala village in Panipat district, complained to the police that the preacher’s followers thrashed him at the Ashram. “They wanted me to give in writing that I am a spy of AryaSamaj. They also prepared my video recording forcing me to give statements against AryaSamaj leader,” Anil said in the FIR.

3. Another FIR was registered on May 9, 2013, against the followers of Rampal for issuing threats to Arya Samajis. According to the complaint filed by the secretary of Haryana Gaushala Sangh Achayra Sarv Mitar, the followers of Rampal telephoned the office-bearers of Arya Samaj and threatened them.

4. Three people, including a woman, were killed and around 100 injured in police firing on activists of Arya Samaj who were protesting against handing over the possession of an ashram to Rampal in Karontha village on May 12, 2013. A day after this, a murder case was registered against Rampal for allegedly killing an Arya Samaj activist Promila Devi.

Swami Nithyananda

Popular for his spiritual discourses and meditation programmes, Swami Nithyananda was named as one of the 100 most spiritually influential living people in the world by Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine.

Controversies

1: Nithyananda landed in a controversy after a purported video footage showing him in a compromising position with an actress was telecast by local TV channels. Nithyananda said the video was morphed and manipulated to misrepresent his personal life but did not deny his images with actress Ranjita in the film.

Lenin Karuppan, who had exposed the alleged sex scandal, was arrested after a complaint by the manager of Nithyananda’s ashram that Lenin had demanded money to keep the video secret.

2: Swami Nithyananda was also accused of rape by an Indian-born American citizen, Arthi Rao, in June 2012. Rao went on Indian television accusing Nithyananda of raping her for several years. Nithyananda again denied the allegations.

Jayendra Saraswati

Jayendra Saraswati is the sixty-ninth Shankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. While acquitted in November 2013 in the Sankararaman murder case, Saraswati has faced many other controversial charges.

Controversies

1. In 2002 a case was filed against Jayendra Saraswathi and his followers for allegedly ordering a murderous assault on auditor Radhakrishnan who raised questions about gold that was meant for Kamakshi temple. The assault case is still under trial.

2. Anuradha Ramanan, a Tamil writer and novelist, complained and filed a suit against Jayendra Saraswathi in 2004 for allegedly asking her for sexual favours. The case was closed on account of her death in 2010.

3. In 2012, Ranjitha, a South Indian actor, filed a defamation case against Jayendra for making scandalous comments, linking her with Nithyananda. The defamation case is still under trial.

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