New Delhi, Dec 23: After over 40 girls were rescued from Rohini’s Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya run by Baba Virendra Dev Dixit, leading daily Times of India has revealed that the self-styled godman, who has been absconding was booked in four gang-rape cases in Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh as far back as in 1998.
Police officials have informed the daily that all the rape survivors were followers of Dixit and had been living in his ashram in Kampil town of Farrukhabad district. The victims who were allegedly raped over the months of March, April and May in 1997 dared to register case against him only after they managed to contact their relatives or flee from the ashram.
They levelled allegations against Dixit’s aide Ravinder Dass as well in the FIR. TOI report claimed that the girls hailed from Mathura, New Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
Talking to the daily, inspector-general of police (IGP) of Kanpur range, Alok Singh said that in 1998 seven to eight criminal cases were filed against Dixit in Farrukhabad. “We are trying to take out and examine old records. Dixit managed to get a stay on all the cases from Allahabad high court and later went absconding,” Singh added.
Earlier on Friday, Ashram’s neighbours had also shared some detailed memory of the so called ‘Spiritual University’. One of the Ashram’s neighbours yesterday said during the last two decades, numerous complainants had been made to the police but no action was taken in the matter. (Also Read: Rape Convict Ram Rahim Getting VIP Treatment in Jail? Prisoner Out on Bail Makes Shocking Revelations)
“I was also threatened for raising my voice in the media, but I was not afraid. I wanted to save innocent girls.I never went there. There are almost seven to eight gates, which used to remain locked,” the woman, who did not want to be named, said.
Narrating another horrific incident, she said, “One of my friend’s daughter was raped around two and a half months ago. And each time we approached the police, they asked us to give us proof. The victim said, in the ashram, there were groups of girls based on their ages.”(Also Read: I am Broke, Don’t Have Money to Pay Lawyer’s Fee: Honeypreet Writes to Jail Authorities)
Echoing similar sentiments, another neighbor said she has many at times saw girls going inside the ashram and never returning.
Dikshit is reprotedly an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna and is obsessed with the idea of having 16,000 women companions with him.
On Friday, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar had said that it was “for the first time we are seeing an ashram where only minor girls are being kept confined”.
“You expect us to close our eyes to this and treat this as normal? What kind of spirituality is it when people are kept confined as animals in cages? We do not understand it.
“Where is the concept of free consent or spirit when you are not allowed to meet your family or friends or wear what you want to? You keep someone under your control for decades, then there it is not free consent. It is a strange set up that hundreds are lodged in closed confines,” the court said. (Also Read: No Fan, Coffee for Honeypreet in Police Lock-up)
The observations by the bench came while hearing of a PIL filed by NGO Foundation for Social Empowerment, which informed the court that several minors and women were allegedly being illegally confined at the “spiritual university” in Delhi’s Rohini and were not allowed to meet their relatives.
(With inputs from agencies)