India Guru in Custody over Sex Assault

Thousands of supporters of the spiritual leader Guru Asaram Bapu stage a sit-in protest near the Parliament in New Delhi. 

They hold posters with his pictures and demand his immediate release.

28-year old Dharam Raj is one of them.

“It is an insult to him. He is such a great saint. He has been in public life for more than 50 years preaching and teaching, millions of people worship him as God, and he’s now being accused of such a heinous crime. How can he do something he has been speaking against for all these years? There’s no truth at all in these allegations.”

But Asaram’s bail plea was recently rejected and he will stay in custody.

He was put in custody over alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl who studies in a school run by Asaram in the northern state of Rajasthan. 

According to her father she was not well and he wanted to bring her back home for treatment.

But Asaram insisted that he will treat her himself and called the family to his rest house.

“He took my daughter in a room and asked us to wait outside, and then he got into his room. There was a back door in his room through which he dragged my daughter into it. We couldn’t see this because there was no light. After some time when I met my daughter she was crying I asked her what happened but she didn’t say anything.  But when I insisted she just said that “let’s go home, there’s no saint here, it’s all farce”. It was only after we reached home that she told us what had happened. He had threatened her that if she made any noise or told anyone about this, his gunmen would kill her parents outside.”

The girl’s parents were also devotees of Asaram but this incident has opened their eyes.

”We followed him blindly. We hated media because he said the media has sold out to the Christian missionaries and they are using them to tarnish the image of Hindu religion and saints. We worshiped him and did everything for him until we saw his real face.”

Asaram is the richest and most influential Hindu spiritual leaders in India.

He has more than 400 meditation centers across India, dozens of schools and huge followers in Northern India.

But he’s also a controversial figure... with dozens of cases filed against him in various courts with charges ranging from illegal land grab to murder.

As Asaram’s former aide, Vedraj Amrut is not surprised with the recent allegation of sexual assault.
 
“Thre have been a number of such cases. I know all this and that’s why he wants to kill me. His men have attempted to murder me six times so far.”

But he’s never been convicted. And he also denies the current charge.

“It’s a dirty allegation and a baseless one. There’s a political conspiracy behind all this it has been going on for a long time now but I don’t want to name the conspirators.”

But after his arrest, Asaram blamed Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi for conspiring against him.

Some politician’s from the opposition party BJP have also made similar allegations.

Uma Bharti is a senior BJP leader.

“There is Congress Party in government both in Delhi and Rajasthan. Asaram Bapu has been openly criticizing Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, and those who tell the truth are often punished.”

It took only two weeks for the police to arrest Asaram.

Deputy Police Commissioner Ajay Lamba says they believe they have a strong case against the preacher.

“We arrested him only after we were convinced that the allegations are true. We collected all the evidence and everything corroborates with the victim’s statement and the allegations are found to be correct.”

As the news of his arrest spread his followers flocked the streets across India.

The protests at some places turned violent with the demonstrators attacking journalists for highlighting the case.

The issue has also polarized the Hindu religious groups.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is the most influential hardliner Hindu organization. 

Its head Ashok Singhal says this is a conspiracy against all Hindus.

“No allegation against Asaram Bapu has been proven and neither will they be. There is an atmosphere being created in the entire country to malign the saints and create doubts about them and the religion with this kind of allegations. Curse on the government and people who are doing all this.

But other Hindu leader Vishal Anand says it’s time for introspection for the religious communities.

“Saints like Buddha attained it when they left everything. But now we are seeing these so-called saints amassing wealth and living luxurious lives. They have built their empires and people still believe them. It’s a serious matter and we need to think and think deeper what is happening in this country.”