Asaram gets life until death

Two other accused get 20year terms, two acquitted; victim’s family happy to have got justice

JODHPUR: A Jodhpur court on Wednesday convicted self-styled godman Asaram of raping a teenager in August 2013 and sentenced him to life in prison until death, the maximum punishment prescribed by the law for the offence. Judge Madhusudan Sharma also convicted two other accused, Shilpi and Sharatchandra, and sentenced them to 20 years in jail. Two other accused, Prakash and Shiva, alias Sawaram Hethwadia, were acquitted.

Asaram, 79, who runs ashrams and has millions of followers in India and overseas, was convicted in a closed jailhouse court in Jodhpur where hundreds of police stood guard on Wednesday. He was arrested in Indore and brought to Jodhpur on September 1, 2013, to face trial in the case in which he was accused of raping a girl who was then 16 at his ashram in a village near the Rajasthani city.

“I am happy to get justice. We had complete faith in the judiciary and are happy that we got justice,” the father of the survivor said in Shahjehanpur, Uttar Pradesh. “This case will set an example for the daughters of the country who are harassed at the hands of people like Asaram.”

For fear of Asaram’s supporters, his family has not come out of their home, which has been guarded round-the-clock by the police for the past four months, the father said.

The prosecution produced 44 witnesses and 160 documents to prove its case against Asaram, who was charged with offences including trafficking, wrongful confinement, sexual harassment and rape of a minor, under the Indian Penal Code, and Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.

“We will study the judgment and file an appeal in the Rajasthan high court,” Asaram’s Counsel Sajjanraj Surana said.

The verdict was pronounced amid heavy security enforced in Jodhpur to prevent the kind of violence that followed the August 2017 conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a rape case. At least 11 people died in Panchkula in violence that followed that order. THREE KEY CASES July 2008: Though Asaram is not named, officials in his ashram in Ahmedabad are named in a murder case of two children suspected to be killed over ‘black magic’ Status: Judicial inquiry held, Gujarat govt yet to table report