How Meerut’s Deepak Tyagi became Yati Narsinghanand

GHAZIABAD: Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, a priest who has been openly communal in his public statements targeting Muslims, will now hold a prestigious position in the Juna akhara, which has inducted him as a ‘mahamandaleshwar’.
The elevation comes barely a week after he likened a 10-year-old boy from the minority community who had wandered into the compound of the Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad to “a trained killer” and alleged he had been sent for “a recce” of the premises. Police had later clarified that the boy was headed for the adjoining health centre but had lost his way.
Another boy from the minority community, who had entered the temple compound this March to drink water, was thrashed by an aide of Yati. The Dasna Devi temple, of which Yati is head priest, has a banner at the gate prohibiting entry of Muslims.
The Meerut-born priest, now in his mid-50s, has been at the Dasna Devi temple since 2007. The 10 years preceding this were transformative, according to those who have known him a long time, drawing him to the views that he today espouses and vows to defend. Deepak Tyagi before he took ‘sanyas’, he renamed himself Deependra Narayan Singh during this period before settling on Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati. “In 1998, he met BJP’s BL Sharma. It changed him as a person,” said Anil Yadav, a friend of Yati.
Yati, who studied at Chaudhary Tara Chand inter college in Hapur, claims to have left India in 1989 to pursue a chemical technology course in Moscow. He says he graduated in 1994 and worked as an engineer before returning to India in 1997 when his mother fell ill. Yati says his younger brother is still in Moscow.
“When my mother’s health was failing, both of us wanted to return to India. But later, we decided that I will come back and take care of our parents and my younger brother will stay there and take care of the family financially,” Yati told TOI on Thursday.
His father, he says, worked in the central government and his grandfather was associated with Congress. After his return to India, he was briefly associated with the Samajwadi Party, according to his friend Yadav.Local Samajwadi functionaries said they did not know if Yati had been a member.
During his Moscow days, circle appears to have been more inclusive. Arun Tyagi, who said he was with him in hostel while they studied in the Russian capital, said there were people from different countries and communities there, including from Pakistan and Bangladesh and all of them mingled as friends.