A Jodhpur court on Sunday remanded controversial spiritual guru Asaram Bapu, accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, in one-day police custody. The 72-year-old self-styled godman, who was earlier questioned by the Jodhpur Police for about four hours at the Rajasthan Armed Constabulary Battalion Campus in Mandore, was produced before District and Sessions Judge (Rural) Manoj K Vyas.
Asaram was arrested from his ashram in Indore amid high drama on Saturday midnight and brought by a Rajasthan Police team via Delhi.
The sexual assault allegedly took place at Asaram’s Manai ashram following which a case was initially registered in Delhi and later transferred to Jodhpur for probe.
Asaram will be taken to his Manai ashram, 30 km from Jodhpur, where the police will try to recreate the scene to verify the charge against him, Jodhpur Police Commissioner Biju George Joseph told reporters. There are still some issues that need to be worked out for a ‘water-tight’ case against Asaram, he said.
The Jodhpur Police is likely to seek extension of Asaram’s remand on Monday.
Joseph said a medical test was carried out on Asaram and there was nothing to suggest that he was unwell. Asaram had claimed that he could not meet the deadline of August 30 given by the Jodhpur police to appear before it as his health condition had deteriorated.
Doctors will also carry out a potency test on Asaram, who has denied rape charges lodged against him by the schoolgirl, the police commissioner said. He refuted reports that Asaram was on a hunger strike and was refusing to eat or drink anything. "He is taking food and water," Joseph said.
Unprecedented security arrangements were made at the airport. Asaram's supporters shouted slogans at the Delhi and Jodhpur airports besides in Raipur. In Mumbai, his supporters stopped trains at Ulhasnagar's railway tracks in the neighbouring Thane district shortly after noon.
When controversy broke out, Asaram alleged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi were behind the "conspiracy" to malign him by chargesheeting in the rape case, as he was opposing religious conversions.