Surat Court Convicts Asharam Bapu’s Son Narayan Sai In Rape Case

A Surat district court held the son of Asaram Bapu, Narayan Sai and four others guilty of rape on Friday. The petition against the rape case accused 10 persons. But, the court convicted five from among them, they include Ganga alias Dharmishta Mishra, Jamna alias Bhavika Patel, Hanuman alias Kaushal Thakur, Ramesh Malhotra and Sai. Judge P. S. Gadhvi, who pronounced the judgment, acquitted Mohit Bhojwani, Monica Agrawal, Pankaj Deora, Ajay Diwan and Neha Diwan. All the convicts except Sai are out on bail.

Judge Gadhvi noted, that Sai was present in the court and was seen laughing before the judgment was delivered, and that the quantum of sentence will be delivered on April 30, reported Indian Express. The court was packed as the judge delivered the judgment and the security in and around the court was heightened ahead of the judgment.

Sai was arrested in 2013, from Haryana’s Pipli village near Kurukshetra by the Delhi Police after being on the run for over 50 days, in the case of raping a teenage girl. The police apprehended 34 accused including Sai. The survivor, younger of the two sisters, accused him of raping her for three years between 2002 and 2005 when she was living at his Surat ashram after which she filed a complaint against him, say reports. Her elder sister accused his father Asaram Bapu of repeated sexual assaults when she was living in the ashram located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad between 1997 and 2006.

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After the complaint, Sai was booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including rape, unnatural sex, molestation, wrongful confinement, unlawful assembly, rioting armed with deadly weapon, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy.

The case was filed against 40-year-old Sai and four of his aides in 2013 by the younger sister of the Surat-based sister duo in Jahangirpura police station. After being arrested from the Punjab-Haryana border, Sai was put behind bars from December 2013 for a period of 17 months and in July 2016. But, he walked out of the Lajpor Central Jail Surat on three weeks of temporary bail granted by the Gujarat High Court to attend to his mother Lakshmiben’s surgery for a cervical chord ailment.

Sai was arrested in 2013, from Haryana’s Pipli village near Kurukshetra by the Delhi Police after being on the run for over 50 days, in the case of raping a teenage girl. The police apprehended 34 accused including Sai. The survivor, younger of the two sisters, accused him of raping her for three years between 2002 and 2005 when she was living at his Surat ashram after which she filed a complaint against him

“Two chargesheets were filed against 35 persons. The prosecution had produced 53 witnesses and documents as evidence. The defense had also produced 14 witnesses,” Sai’s lawyer Kalpesh Desai had said then.

Sai’s mother was also booked in the rape case filed against Asaram by one of the sisters. Later, she was granted bail, reported The Hindu.

Picture credit- Latestly