Indian spiritual guru, 81, worshipped by millions who raped a ‘devotee’ is jailed for life
>
The 81-year-old Indian spiritual guru, adored by millions, is jailed for life after forcing a young woman to have sex with him and raping a ‘devotee’ who was held prisoner for five years.
- Asaram Bapu, 81, was convicted of raping a woman between 2001 and 2006
- He is already serving a life sentence for raping another devotee, who was 16 years old.
An Indian spiritual guru with millions of followers was jailed for life today after being found guilty of raping one of his devotees whom he held prisoner for five years.
Asaram Bapu, 81, was found guilty yesterday of sexually abusing the woman several times between 2001 and 2006 at his monastery in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
Today, a Gandhinager court sentenced Asaram to life imprisonment and ordered the self-proclaimed guru to pay a fine of Rs 23,000 (£228) and also Rs 50,000 (£496) as compensation to the victim.
Asaram is already serving a life sentence after he was found guilty of raping another devotee, who was 16 at the time, at his ashram in Rajasthan in 2018.
Asaram Bapu was jailed for life today after he raped one of his devotees whom he held prisoner for five years. Pictured: Asaram in 2016 off the pitch
The guru raped the 16-year-old while her parents waited outside her room chanting prayers as he ‘healed’ her. He threatened to kill the girl’s parents if she told anyone.
In the latest case, a woman told police in 2013 that Asaram raped her multiple times at his ashram in the town of Motera, where he held her prisoner for five years before she managed to escape.
Today, Asaram, who has millions of followers and more than 400 ashrams in India, was convicted of the rape and wrongful detention of the woman.
In 2019, Asaram’s son Narayan Sai was sentenced to life in prison for illegally raping and confining the same woman’s younger sister.
The woman came forward in 2013 to report the rape to police after Asaram was arrested in a separate sexual assault case.
Asaram Bapu, 81, (pictured in 2013) was convicted of sexually abusing the woman multiple times between 2001 and 2006 at his monastery in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
In that separate case, two of Asaram’s followers accused him of raping their 16-year-old daughter.
They said the guru had forced the daughter to perform sexual acts on him at his ashram in the Rajasthan city of Jodhpur and threatened to kill her family if they told them about the abuse.
Asaram was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 for raping the teenager in 2013.
It has been at the center of a number of controversies over the years.
In 2013, he sparked outrage after he said Jyoti Singh, who was gang-raped by six men on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 before dying of her injuries, was partly responsible for her own attack.
Asaram said the 23-year-old medical student, whose gang rape shocked all of India, was as “guilty as her rapists”.
He added that he should have been friendlier to his attackers if he wanted to preserve his own life.
“The victim is as guilty as her rapists,” she said at the time. ‘He should have called the guilty brothers and pleaded before them to stop.’