Self-styled godman’s city ashram searched

BHUBANESWAR:  Two days after Delhi Police raided the ashram of a self-styled godman at Rohini in the National Capital, the Bhubaneswar Police raided a branch of his ashram in the city on Friday.Police searched Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya Ashram in Jagannath Nagar area under Mancheswar police limits to trace self-styled Godman Virendra Dev Dikshit, who is believed to be obsessed with the idea of having 16,000 women with him as according to some belief, that is the number of gopis Lord Krishna had.

On receiving information that some devotees had assembled at the ashram in Jagannath Nagar’s Lane 9 along with the self-styled godman, police reached the place suspecting that Dikshit was hiding inside. Locals and mediapersons too had made a beeline outside the ashram.

“We searched the entire ashram, but did not find him. However, we found that some devotees from Uttar Pradesh had come here for attending a religious event,” Mancheswar police said.Delhi High Court had asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to look into complaints filed by a group of parents alleging that Dikshit was sexually exploiting a number of minor girls and women being held at Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya Ashram in New Delhi’s Rohini ashram.

A team of senior officials on December 21 evening had rescued about 40 girls from the ashram in Rohini area in Delhi, who were allegedly confined there from last several years.