Ahmedabad: A Gandhinagar court on Monday convicted self-styled godman Asaram Bapu in a decade-old rape case with a female disciple. This case against Asaram was registered in 2013. Sessions Judge DK Soni will pronounce the sentence on Tuesday (January 31). The court acquitted six other accused, including Asaram’s wife, due to lack of evidence. According to the FIR lodged at Ahmedabad’s Chandkheda police station, Asaram raped the woman several times between 2001 and 2006, when she lived at his ashram in Motera, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
Public Prosecutor RC Kodekar said on Monday, “The court has accepted the prosecution case and Asaram has been booked under sections 376 (2) (c), 377 (unnatural sex) and illegal confinement of the Indian Penal Code.” In October 2013, a Surat-based woman filed a case against Asaram and seven others alleging rape and illegal confinement. One of the accused died during the pendency of the trial. A charge sheet was filed in the case in July 2014.
Asaram is facing charges of rape, unnatural sex, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, etc. Six other co-accused, including Asaram’s wife and daughter, were accused of abetment, hostage-taking, and conspiracy, and have been acquitted. Surat police registered an FIR on October 6, 2021, on the basis of a complaint lodged by two sisters. One case was registered against Asaram and the other against his son Narayan Sai. Many sections including rape, sexual harassment, and illegal hostage taking have been imposed on both.
Later, the complaint lodged against Asaram was transferred to the Chandkheda police station in Ahmedabad as the incident took place at the ashram there. Significantly, in the year 2013, a court in Jodhpur (Rajasthan) sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment 2013 for raping a teenager. He is currently in Jodhpur jail.
