Narayan Sai fails to turn up for questioning

AHMEDABAD: Narayan Sai, son of Asaram Bapu, did not turn up before CID (crime) officials on Tuesday. He had been given two days to report before the CID for questioning in connection with the mystery deaths of two students of Asaram Gurukul – Dipesh and Abhishek Vaghela.

CID officials also confessed that they did not have any idea of probable location of Narayan. According to CID (crime) officials , Narayan could not be contacted on Tuesday when the officials tried the phone numbers of his ashram and even some of his devotees.

“The next action will soon be devised on the basis of the reply we have got. Sai has failed to turn up, worsening the case for himself. It was supposed to be a routine questioning, as he had been in touch with Asaram Gurukul in Motera,” said a CID official.

The officials also said that Sai does not have any charges against him but they wanted to confirm his role in the episode following media reports . Sai was called upon for a routine check.

Narayan Sai has a separate ashram in Gambhoi in Sabarkantha. He also visits Asaram various ashrams across the country.

Various people have claimed to have provided investigating officials enough proof against the father-son duo.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ahmedabad/Narayan_Sai_fails_to_turn_up_for_questioning_/articleshow/3358701.cms

Seize Asaram Bapu’s passport: Congress leader

Ahmedabad, Aug 9 (IANS) The passport of religious leader Asaram Bapu should be temporarily seized till the probe into the death of two children in a school run by his ashram here is completed, said Gujarat Congress vice president Ashok Punjabi.

 

With pressure mounting on Asaram Bapu, he may try to get away to a safe haven abroad. Punjabi told IANS Saturday.

‘We are calling for the case to be handed over to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation). Four deaths have taken place in a short span,’ he said.

Dipesh Vaghela, 10, and his cousin Abhishek Vaghela, 11, were found dead on the riverbed near the ashram at Motera here July 4, and their parents suspect found play. Within a month two more children studying in Asaram Bapu’s ashram gurukuls in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh were found dead in unusual circumstances.

Punjabi also criticised the Gujarat police for not giving permission to the Jagega Gujarat Sangharsh Samiti, a group of organisations seeking thorough investigations, to hold a 72-hour protest at the Income Tax circle here.

‘We have taken this matter to high court and the hearing is on Monday,’ Punjabi said

 

 

http://www.sindhtoday.net/south-asia/10468.htm

Ahmedabad bandh against asaram ashram deaths

AHMEDABAD: Ahmedabad came to a standstill on Friday over the mysterious death of two boys at an ashram run by spiritual leader Asaram Bapu. 

The Congress-backed bandh called by residents was marred by violence and attacks on journalists allegedly by supporters of Asaram Bapu.

Mobs, angry over the tardy pace of police probe into the deaths, torched vehicles and pelted stones at several places. The decomposed bodies of cousins Abhishek Vaghela (11) and Dipesh Vaghela (10) were found on July 6 on the banks of Sabarmati river near Sardar Patel stadium, about 2.5 km from Asaram Bapu Gurukul.

The boys, reported missing by the Ashram authorities a few days before their bodies were found, were enrolled in class V and VI.   

On Friday, Asaram Bapu went to the house of Diptesh’s father Praful Vaghela but was barely there for three minutes before he was hounded out.

Vaghela, who has been observing ‘maun vrat’, or vow of silence, for the last four days to protest the deaths of his son and nephew, ordered that all the things the Bapu had touched be burnt. Even the mat he sat on was set ablaze.

Vaghela has alleged that the boys were killed and thrown into the river after some esoteric ritual at the ashram. Police are yet to search a cellar in the ashram which is guarded by white robed men.

 

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1178497

VP had almost solved Ayodhya imbroglio

VP had almost solved Ayodhya imbroglio
Kishore Kunal is known as much for his impeccable integrity as for streamlining the functioning of various temples in Bihar.
When he was in the IPS, the mere mention of his name used to send shivers down the criminals’ spine. A Gujarat cadre officer, who served in Bihar for more than 20 years in different capacities, right from Senior SP of Patna to IG, CISF, Kishore Kunal is known as much for his impeccable integrity as for streamlining the functioning of various temples in Bihar.

Having opted for VRS in 2001, Kunal, as chairman of the Bihar State Religious Trust Board, has today virtually turned Bihar temples into money-spinners. No wonder, a cancer hospital, an eye institute which is an extension of Shankar Netralaya of Chennai, and various schools are being run under the aegis of Mahavir Mandir Trust. And all this with the offerings from lakhs of devotees across the state.

The man, who has the rare distinction of having worked closely with three Prime Ministers, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar and P V Narasimha Rao, took time off from his hectic schedule to talk exclusively with Abhay Kumar of Deccan Herald.

Kunal dwelt at length on various issues ranging from his stint as a member of Ayodhya cell in the PMO, as an OSD in MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs), besides his experience as a vice-chancellor of a Sanskrit university. Kunal also shed light on how he had tightened the noose around the much-revered Asharam Bapu who, he says, has usurped property worth Rs 2 crore in Patna. Excerpts:

Deccan Herald: Asharam Bapu is a widely respected man, and has a fan following across the globe. Why have you charged him with forgery?

Kishore Kunal: The irony is that the man who gives sermons to lakhs of people on various TV channels, is quite the opposite in real life. I know him since 1978 when I was the DCP of Ahmedabad. In Patna itself, he has forcibly occupied land and property worth Rs 2 crore in Kadamkuan area where his ashram runs in an “unlawful” manner. The 13-kattha land of his ashram actually belongs to Bhisma Das Thakurbari. We have served a second notice on him to vacate the premises. His response is awaited.

DH: There are many illegal things going on in various temples…

KK: (Interrupts) That is why I am here to check such malpractices. As chairman of the Bihar State Religious Trust Board, I have identified and punished various mahants who have been found to be womanisers or have embezzled temple funds worth crores.

DH: Your no-nonsense approach fetched you a posting in MHA and then PMO.

KK: True. I was asked to come over to Delhi in June 1990 and be a part of the team which was negotiating with the VHP and the Babri Masjid Action Committee for an amicable solution to the Ayodhya imbroglio.

DH: But those talks remained futile?

KK: V P Singh had almost solved the problem. I was privy to the strategy worked out in October 1990, but then Lalu’s order to arrest Advani in Bihar poured cold waters on our plan. I remember, Bukhari, too, expressed the desire that Advani’s arrest should be deferred as he genuinely wanted that VP should continue as PM till a solution was arrived at. But after Advani’s arrest, the BJP immediately pulled the rug.

DH: You were retained by the Chandra Shekhar regime to carry on the negotiations.

KK: Chandra Shekhar, contrary to the general perception, was quite focused and had his mind on this vexed issue. Tragically, two senior politicians who were also governors of two different states played the spoilsport. I won’t name them, as they are no more.

DH: Why then did Narasimha Rao opt for your services to broker peace between the VHP and Bukhari?

KK: It was Naresh Chandra in Rao’s team who had heard me talk tough when Vinod Chandra Pande was the Cabinet Secretary. I had rebuked two senior-most VHP members in MHA office when they told me “Hum Hindu Rashtra banane ki baat kar rahe hai, aur aap mandir banane ka formula bata rahe hai”.

DH: Then…

KK: My neutral stance stood me in good stead. This is precisely why the then Defence Minister Sharad Pawar, who was working as Rao’s pointsman to resolve Ayodhya tangle in November 1992 asked me to rush to his place. But after Kalyan Singh went back on his words, which he had pledged during the NIC meet and gave the karsevaks ample time to carry out their agenda, there was nothing much left to be done.

DH: Further talks on Ayodhya now?

KK: Unfortunately, the Vajpayee government never sought my services. So I was back in Bihar as DIG, CISF. However, I shifted to Gujarat in March 2000 and took VRS in May 2001 after serving there as ADG (Prisons).

DH: How come you were made a Vice-Chancellor in Lalu raj?

KK: This impression needs to be dispelled. Actually, I was appointed by Bihar Governor V C Pande, with whom I worked closely in Delhi when he was the Cabinet Secretary during VP’s regime. But I must admit that neither Rabri Devi nor her Education Minister ever interfered in my work.

DH: As chairman of the Bihar Religious Trust Board, you turned the Mahavir Mandir into a cash cow.

KK: This is just one example. From Rs 11,000 in 1987, this mandir has now shown a profit of Rs 3.4 crore. After meeting the expenses of religious rituals, I use the surplus fund for running hospitals and schools.

DH: With immense popularity, have you ever thought of entering Parliament as a Lok Sabha member?

KK: Since 1984 to 2004, I have received several such proposals. But I have always turned down the offer, as most of my ambitions have been fulfilled. The only wish unfulfilled is not having solved the Ayodhya imbroglio. That I will do some day.

http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/dec172006/editpage19484820061216.asp

Cult & Controversy: the story of Asaram ashram

Ahmedabad, August 10: For the phenomenally influential religious guru, Asaram Bapu, his 37-year-long spiritual career had never been a cakewalk and the four mysterious deaths in his ashramss here and in Madhya Pradesh and the public ire he has been courting are only the latest that he hopes to shrug off.

His spiritual domain is spread across 300 ashrams throughout India, as also in the US, with lakhs of his followers and admirers flooding his commune with funds. Sixty-seven-year-old Bapu has even delivered a speech at the parliament of world religions.

Few controversies connected with his ashrams have invited media attention the way the deaths of four children in his two ashrams — in Ahmedabad and Chhindwara — did in just one month. His ashram, in both the cases, is facing serious problems, with investigators finally getting down to grilling inmates of the ashrams in connection with the deaths.

Asaram Bapu may not have had to look back ever since he set up his first kutia or hutment in Motera village here in 1971, but the path had all along been strewn with scandals.

Sindh-born Asaram, who had migrated to Ahmedabad with his parents during Partition, is facing about dozen-odd cases at different places — all of them pertaining to alleged land grabbing by his Sant Asaram Bapu Trust. One of the villagers in Motera, Ashok Thakore, has moved the court to get back five acres of his family’s land allegedly grabbed by the ashram. According to Thakore, the land is situated adjoining the ashram and was used for erecting tents on the Guru Purnima day. Permission to this effect was given by his father to the ashram. After his father’s death, the ashram grabbed it by saying that Thakore’s father had ‘gifted’ it to the ashram. However, the ashram has not been able to substantiate its claim with proofs.

In another case, Anil Vyas, a farmer from Jehangirpura village near Surat, where the ashram is facing several allegations of land grabbing, is fighting a prolonged battle for recovery of his 34,400 square metres of prime land from the ashram. According to Vyas, despite the fact that the ashram’s claim over the land was challenged in the court, the state Government regularised the unauthorised encroachment on January 24, 1997. However, the Gujarat High Court on December 8, 2006, held the regularisation illegal and decreed in favour of the farmer. The Ashram then appealed to the Division Bench against the order.

A Delhi-based widow, Sudarshan Kumari, is also fighting a legal battle against Asaram Bapu whose Trust, she alleges, had fraudulently got some papers signed by her. The paper later turned out to be a ‘gift deed’ to the ashram. The documents say that she has gifted the ground floor of her house in Rajouri Garden, New Delhi, to the ashram. According to her complaint, on July 6, 2000, on the pretext of taking her to Asaram satsang, she was taken to the office of Sub Registrar in Janakpuri, New Delhi. One of the inmates of the ashram, identified as Mani Kaka, hypnotised her and made her sign a number of documents, without allowing her to go through the content. The other person who signed the papers there, according to her, was Narayan Swamy, son of Asaram Bapu. She came to know about the gift deed when officials from the Municipal Committee of Delhi came to confirm it.

The ashram authorities at Rajokri village, near Gurgaon, have allegedly forged documents pertaining to the registration of the ashram. Bhagwani Devi, a resident of Rajokri, has also approached the Delhi High Court levelling allegations of land grabbing against Asaram’s Rajokri ashram.

Even Government agencies have levelled allegations of land grabbing against Asaram’s Trust. A few months ago, the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (BSBRT) had served a notice to the Trust’s headquarters in Ahmedabad, asking it to vacate a land belonging to BSBRT, worth Rs 80 crore. And in April 2007, a retired judge of the Patna High Court had filed a criminal complaint in Kadamkuan police station, Patna, alleging grabbing of his land by Asaram Bapu and others.

In Ratlam, Asaram’s Trust had to vacate a piece of land after a prolonged litigation. In January 2007, power theft amounting to Rs 4.7 lakh was detected from his Rajkot ashram.

Despite all these cases and allegations, Asaram Bapu’s popularity is on the rise — particularly among the ruling party politicians in the state. “It is due to the clout of Asaram that no criminal case was registered against any of his ashram-members nor was anyone from the ashram arrested after the two boys of his gurukuls died under mysterious circumstances,” said a rebel BJP leader, requesting anonymity.

The popularity of Asaram can be gauged from the fact that his photographs can be spotted in every government office across the state and even state transport corporation’s buses display his photos and messages.

When the Gujarat Government in 2005 decided to rejuvenate the Saraswati river by filling long tracts of land considered to be the vestiges of the mythical river at Sidhpur town in Mehsana district, Asaram Bapu was the chief guest at the launch of the project. Though there are other religious leaders in the state, inviting him to such a high-profile programme as the chief guest explains the popularity of the man among the ruling party.

Again, when the state Government temporarily launched Vande Gujarat TV channel, telecasting its developmental achievements on the eve of December 2007 Assembly polls, the channel regularly carried footages of Asaram Bapu.

This explains the clout of Asaram Bapu whose religious movement has taken the shape of a cult, having followers in every section of the society. With his influence growing, there are many politicians, including Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, visiting his ashram regularly.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani is also believed to be one of the regular visitors to the ashram. The Ashram manager in Ahmedabad, Arvind Patel, is a senior BJP functionary.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/347163.html

Gujarat HC orders asaram to compensate violence victims

Gujarat HC orders Spiritual guru asaram to compensate violence victims
8/27/2008

Spiritual guru Asaram Bapu received another jolt as the Gujarat High Court directed that a case be registered against his ashram here regarding the alleged attacks by his disciples on journalists on July 18.

The Court has also ordered Asaram Bapu to pay compensation to the people who were injured in the citys Motera area clash, when journalists were assaulted and their cameras broken.

The court directed the police to register FIRs if any person approaches them with complaints.

The ruling came after an NGO, Jan Sangarsh Manch, filed a PIL demanding that the court direct the state government to probe the attacks, allegedly by the supporters and disciples of the spiritual guru.

The bodies of two minor children, staying at the ashram’s gurukul, were found near the ashram on June 7. Since then the ashram is in the eye of controversy as a series of allegations against the ashram and Asaram’s son Narayan Swami, regarding his sexual and financial misconduct, have been levelled and put the spiritual father-son duo under the police scanner.

UNI

 

http://www.indlawnews.com/newsdisplay.aspx?5273d8ae-75fa-40ef-87f7-90732f2afd42

CID team at Asaram’s ashram in search of Bapu’s son

Ahmedabad, Aug 13: A 20-member strong team of the Gujarat CID on Wednesday went to spiritual guru Asaram Bapu’s ashram in Ahmedabad in search of his son, Narayan Sai.

Asaram Bapu’s son was due to appear in court today in connection with the deaths of two students of a school run by the Asaram Bapu trust here.

The CID team had arrived at the ashram to probe whether the reports on occult practices being carried out at the premises were correct or not.

The CID may demand an arrest warrant against Narayan Sai in connection with the murders, in tomorrow’s hearing.

The CID summons followed frequent reports appearing in local dailies alleging Narayan Swami’s involvement in tantrik (occult) activities, though there has been no evidence connecting him to the deaths.

The two children went missing from the gurukul under mysterious circumstances in July. The bodies of the two children, Dipesh Praful Vaghela (10) and Abhishek Shantilal Vaghela (11), were later found from the Sabarmati riverbed near the Asaram’s ashram on the outskirts of the city on July 6. The deaths led to violent protests in Ahmedabad.

The father of one of the dead children also sat on an indefinite fast to protest against the incident.

Speculations of occult rituals are rife since the post-mortem examination report suggested that the internal organs of one of the boys were missing and that their heads were tonsured.

 

http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=462069&sid=REG

Problems aplenty — asaram bapu

It is not easy being Asaram Bapu, at least not after facing a series of charges including land-grabbing and taking religious followers for a ride.

He has become the target of yet another attack, this time by a tantrik Oghad Sukharam.

The tantrik has accused him of asking him to use black magic to kill two local media barons and four of his former colleagues, who Bapu believes are responsible for the vilification campaign against him.

Sukharam produced two recorded conversations in which the godman talks of the ritual to be conducted.

According to him, Shreyans Shah of Gujarat Samachar and Parth Falgun Patel of Sandesh were on Bapu’s hit list.

The two papers had been at the forefront of the campaign against Bapu. 

Brewing trouble for Asaram Bapu

Apart from Bapu’s conversations, Sukharam also produced tapes of his conversations with some of Bapu’s right-hand men, who talked of paying him Rs 1 lakh as fee.

 

These phone numbers can be traced to Bapu’s followers in Delhi.

His camp has, however, rubbished these claims calling it yet another falsehood to “demolish his image of a spiritual giant”.

— Uday Mahurkar

http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&issueid=69&task=view&id=14087&sectionid=23&Itemid=1

Ashram deaths: Samiti seeks HC nod to hold 72-hr fast

AHMEDABAD: Denied permission to stage a fast, protesters of godman Asaram Bapu, who are seeking a thorough investigation in the mysterious death of two children – Dipesh and Abhishek Vaghela – have now approached Gujarat High Court.

The Jagega Gujarat Sangharsh Samiti, which has been supporting the boys’ parents in their struggle to get justice, has filed a petition seeking action against the police and home department for denying its members permission to sit on a 72-hour fast.

The organization has contended that taking to fasting is people’s birthright and the administration has erred by not giving them permission.

The application will come up for hearing before a division bench of acting Chief Justice MS Shah and Justice DH Waghela on Monday.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ahmedabad/Ashram_deaths_Samiti_seeks_HC_nod_to_hold_72-hr_fast/articleshow/3344357.cms