Godman grilled

Asaram, 72, was later produced before district and sessions judge (rural) Manoj K Vyas, who remanded him to one-day police custody. Asaram will be taken to his Manai ashram, 30km from Jodhpur, where the police will try to recreate the scene to verify the charge against him, Jodhpur police commissioner Biju George Joseph told reporters here.

There are still some issues that need to be worked out for a ‘watertight’ case against Asaram, he said. Joseph said a medical test was carried out on Asaram and there was nothing to suggest that he was unwell. Asaram had claimed that he could not meet the deadline of 30 August given by the Jodhpur police to appear before it as his health condition had deteriorated.

Doctors will also carry out a potency test on Asaram, who has denied rape charges lodged against him by the schoolgirl, the police commissioner said. He refuted reports that Asaram was on a hunger strike and refusing to eat or drink anything. ‘He is taking food and water,’ Joseph said. Asaram was brought by Rajasthan police team led by additional commissioner of police Satish Jangid.

They were flown via Delhi in an Air India flight at about 12.30 pm. He was taken to Rajasthan Armed Constabulary Battalion campus in Mandore where he was interrogated for four hours, police said. Unprecedented security arrangements were made at the airport. Asaram’s supporters shouted slogans at the Delhi and Jodhpur airports.

A report from Mumbai said they also stopped trains at Ulhasnagar’s railway tracks in the neighbouring Thane district shortly after noon. Asaram was arrested by the Jodhpur police after midnight from his ashram in Indore and escorted by a large posse of police personnel to the airport, where he spent the night on a sofa in the VIP lounge.

His arrest followed an FIR filed by the girl alleging she was sexually assaulted by Asaram at his ashram in this Rajasthan city. Unprecedented security arrangements were made at the airport, where Asaram faced black flag protests, on the streets, outside and inside Asaram’s ashrams, and the Mahila Thana (women’s police station) where the case has been lodged.

Meanwhile, the father of the girl called off his fast-unto-death in Shahajahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh soon after the arrest of the godman in Indore. City circle officer, Rajeswar Singh offered the girl’s father juice to end his fast that began on Saturday morning demanding immediate arrest of Asaram.

On the other hand, demonstrations against Asaram were held at different places, with protesters burning his effigy. On his arrival at the airport here, scores of slogan shouting people showed black flags and displayed anti-Asaram posters in Ratanada area. ‘It’s end of the road for you,’ they chanted. The sexual assault case was filed by an inmate of his Chhindwara-based ashram in Madhya Pradesh. The assault allegedly took place in Jodhpur following which a case was initially registered in Delhi and later transferred to Jodhpur for probe. 

As the case took political overtones, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh attacked the BJP, questioning the ‘silence’ of its leader Sushma Swaraj and asking why Narendra Modi has not taken action on the report of a judicial commission which probed the mysterious death of two boys at the godman’s Gujarat ashram. Singh alleged that Asaram has been close to BJP ‘for a very long time’ and accused the Opposition party of double standards.