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

asaram ashram deaths: parents to go on fast again

Manas Dasgupta

 AHMEDABAD: With no solution in sight even a month after the mysterious deaths of the two minor boys in the Asaram Bapu ashram here, the parents of the deceased have decided to again go on fast to pressure the police to expedite the investigation.

The Madhya Pradesh police has claimed to have cracked similar mysterious deaths of two minors in the Bapu’s Chindwara ashram in less than a week. The family members of Deepesh and Abhishek — the children who died here — are disappointed at the failure of the Gujarat police to solve case of mysterious deaths.

Supported by the “Jagega Gujarat,” a voluntary organisation formed to launch the anti-Asaram agitation in the wake of the deaths of the two minor cousins, their fathers, Shanti Vaghela and Praful Vaghela has announced a three-day fast from August 8 and to further intensify their agitation if no solution was found till then.

An indefinite fast by Mr. Praful Vaghela last month and the unprecedented support it received from the people of Ahmedabad and other parts of the State had forced Chief Minister Narendra Modi to take away the investigation from the local police and handed it over to the CID (Crime) and to also order a judicial inquiry into the episode.

Nothing done so far

 

 

At the assurance from the Chief Minister, Mr. Vaghela broke his fast on the ninth day, but since then except appointing a retired judge of the Gujarat high court, D. K. Trivedi, to constitute the one-man judicial inquiry commission, nothing concrete has so far emerged into the police investigation. Mr Modi, however, did not accept the demand for a CBI inquiry into the death of the children.

Mr. Vaghela had later alleged that he was “tricked into” meeting the Chief Minister by some BJP leaders and was constantly under pressure from his sympathisers to resume the agitation against the ashram.

 

 

http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/05/stories/2008080557781100.htm