Self-styled godman Asaram Bapu has been convicted by a court in Gandhinagar, Gujarat in a case where he was accused of repeatedly raping a female disciple. He was convicted more than nine years after a former disciple had lodged a case of rape against him during her earlier stay in his ashram.
Additional Sessions Judge DK Soni convicted Asaram for raping the female disciple on several occasions at his Surat Ashram in 2013.
The judge is expected to pronounce the sentence against Asaram on Tuesday morning.
Asaram was convicted for offences under Sections 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 354 (outraging modesty of a woman), 346 (wrongful confinement), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destroying evidence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
As per the First Information Report (FIR) lodged at Chandkheda police station in Ahmedabad, the survivor was allegedly confined by Asaram in his Asharam at the outskirts of Surat city and was raped repeatedly from 2001 to 2006.
This is not the first case in which Asaram has been convicted. He is already serving life sentence in two separate sexual offence cases, besides other lesser punishments.
He is presently lodged in a jail in Jodhpur since 2018, when he was brought from Indore where he was arrested in 2013.
Asaram’s lawyer said the session court’s order will be challenged in the Gujarat High Court.
Incidentally, the victim’s younger sister was raped and illegally confined by Asaram’s son Narayan Sai. Sai was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Surat in April 2019 in the rape case filed against him by his former disciple in 2013.
