Seers live in fear after release of fake baba list

IN A SPOT As Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad gets set to release second list, they suspect role of godmen behind missing officebearer

ALLAHABAD: Even as police are groping in the dark to trace the whereabouts of national spokesman of the Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad (ABAP), the seers’ body is set to release its second list of fake babas.

Mahant Mohan Das, the kothari of Bada Udasin Akhada, went missing on September 16 when he was travelling from Haridwar to Mumbai five days after the ABAP released its first list of 14 fake babas.

Akhil Bharatiya Akhada Parishad suspects the involvement of self-styled godmen, who figured on the list, in the disappearance of Mohan Das.

“We fear that he has been abducted and his life is in danger,” said ABAP president Swami Narendra Giri.

“The government should take action and provide security to all office-bearers of the Parishad as we are planning to release another list of 25 fake sadhus after Diwali,” he said.

“The police traced the last location of Mohan Das in Meerut on September 16,” said Narendra Giri, who is also the secretary of Niranjani Akhada.

Cabinet minister in Uttarakhand government Madan Kaushik recently met ABAP office-bearers in Haridwar and assured them that the missing saint would be found within 10 days.

“Five days have passed since the assurance. If we do not get any information about Mohan Das in the next five days, we will stage an indefinite sit-in at Haridwar, Allahabad, Ayodhya and other cities of UP and Uttarakhand,” he added.

Narendra Giri said Mohan Das lived in Haridwar and regularly attended ABAP meetings, including the ones in which the names of fake babas were finalised.

“We demand security for all office-bearers before we release the second list of fake babas. The list contains 25 names of famous babas who do not belong to any monastic tradition. They are also not associated with any mutt. People may be surprised on seeing their names in the list,” he added.