On the 26th of April, a Surat sessions court found Narayan Sai, the son of Asaram Bapu, guilty of rape. Apart from Narayan Sai, the court also convicted four other members in this case.
A case was registered against Sai under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC,) addressing rape, unnatural sex, molestation, wrongful confinement, unlawful assembly, rioting armed with deadly weapon, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy. Sai was accused of continuously raping the younger of the two sisters who filed the complaint. According to the complaint, Sai repeatedly raped the victim between the years 2002 and 2005.
The younger sister said this incident took place when she, along with her older sister, was living at Sai’s ashram in Surat, Gujarat. In a separate case, the older sister had filed charges of repeated sexual assault against Sai’s father, Asaram Bapu, saying he raped her on multiple occasions when she was living at his ashram between 1997 and 2006.
The Surat sessions court convicted Narayan Sai after listening to not one, but 53 witnesses. With so many witnesses testifying against him, Sai was forced to go underground. It was only in 2013 he was found at the Delhi Haryana border and arrested two months after the FIR was filed.
In another count, Sai was also arrested for trying to bribe jail officials to the tune of Rs. 13 crores.
The final hearing of the case will be heard on the 30th of April.
Stay tuned for more updates.
