Cop who led the probe got 2,000 threat letters
JODHPUR: August 20, 2013 was turning out to be an ordinary day for Ajay Pal Lamba, deputy commissioner of police (Jodhpur West), when he received a phone call at 3 pm — one that was to change the course of his career. The call was from a counterpart in Delhi police, who handed over to him a high-profile rape case in which the accused was self-styled godman Asaram and the victim,a teenaged girl.
The next few months brought a mix of almost relentless media attention, the disturbing deaths of witnesses in the case and threats to his family from supporters of Asaram.
Now superintendent of police (SP) with the anti-corruption bureau in Jodhpur, Lamba said that in the five months he was overseeing the investigation, he received more than 2,000 threat letters that filled an entire sack.
“The letters carried abuses and threatened they would kill my family if anything happened to Asaram. My phone would not stop ringing and I stopped receiving calls from unknown numbers. The letters stopped only when I shifted to Udaipur (in January 2014),” said Lamba, 39.
He said he stopped sending his daughter to school for a while and that his wife would not step out of the house. One of the suspects arrested in connection with the killing of a witness in the case confessed that his next target was Chanchal Mishra, the then deputy SP with Jodhpur police and an investigating officer in the case, he added.
The victim was 16 when she was raped by Asaram at his ashram in Jodhpur in August 2013. Her family filed a complaint in Delhi on August 20, 2013. The case was transferred to Jodhpur.
“There was no political pressure of any kind but I felt that longer the probe is delayed, the more it gets tangled up,” said Lamba. “When my team went to deliver a summons notice to Asaram at his ashram in Madhya Pradesh, they faced a mob of about 8,000 people. My team was shoved and it took them 10 hours just to be able to deliver that piece of paper,” said Lamba, referring to the August 25, 2013 event.
Asaram failed to appear before the Jodhpur police by August 28 and his arrest proved to be an onerous task for Jodhpur police. Lamba said the media coverage had dampened the morale of Asaram supporters and the local police took control of the situation in Indore. On August 31, 2013, a Jodhpur police team entered the ashram to arrest him.