More skeletons have started to tumble out of the closet of self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, if one goes by the investigations carried out by Delhi Police. The 16-year-old girl, who studied at Asaram Bapu’s Chhindwara gurukul, was taken to Haridwar by the hostel warden Shilpa for seeking the ‘blessings’ of the godman. She was transported from Chhindwara to Haridwar a week before her travails in the Jodhpur ashram, where she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Asaram.
The girl in her statement, before the Investigating Officer (IO) of Kamla Market police station, had said that she was taken to Haridwar by hostel warden Shilpa with other girls. She was lucky to have escaped then but was later taken to Jodhpur ashram for curing her stomach ailment.
A senior Delhi Police officer said that Shilpa holds the key in this case since she was in the habit of taking girls out of the hostel to meet Asaram in the guise of getting them cured of evil spirits. “Shilpa was found to be mired in luring girls and she had taken other girls too out of the hostel to others parts of the country where Asaram stayed. She needs to be interrogated at length to unravel this dark aspect of young girls being exploited in the name of tantra mantra, a senior Delhi Police official said.
It would be pertinent to mention here that the Jodhpur Police had summoned Shilpa, along with Asaram’s trusted aide Shiva, for questioning but they have eluded police dragnet so far.
According to a Delhi Police official who heard the girl at length, said that she was very consistent and did not waver one bit. The decision to register a criminal case against Asaram was taken after she gave a written complaint. The First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Kamla Market police station on the basis of her statement. She was provided counselling immediately. She narrated the timeline of events to the woman counsellor and before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) as well. She willingly recorded her statement before the concerned magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC and there was no digression, the official added.
“Since the girl is a minor, we added Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act (JJ) and Section 8 of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The Criminal law Amendment Act 2013 is very clear if we read section 375D of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The crime committed on the minor girl fell under the definition of 375D and the punishment for the same is under Section 376 (rape), hence, we added this Section in the FIR. It was a fit case for the immediate arrest of Asaram. Our hands were tied since the place of occurrence was Jodhpur. Had it been in Delhi, Asaram would have been behind bars, a senior police official of Central district said.