Minor girls recovered from UP 'spiritual school'

The police, however, do not rule out the possibility of the girls being sexually exploited. “All the girls would be medically examined to ascertain if they had been sexually exploited,” the officials said adding that a case had been registered against the owner of the ‘ashram’ Virendra Dixit, though he was yet to be arrested.

The matter came to light when the father of Meena, lodged a report with the police in Banda stating that his daughter had gone missing. Meena had been abducted from Banda and was brought to the ‘ashram’, his father Rakesh Kumar Singh alleged.

Further investigations by the police on Monday led them to the ‘spiritual school’ in Farrukhabad town, sources said. All the girls, recovered from the ‘ashram’, were in the age group of 10 to 15 years. “It appears that all of them were either abducted from different places or were brought on the pretext of providing them religious and spiritual education after persuading their parents,” the police sources said adding, “We are trying to contact their (girls’) families.”

To the religious minded public, the school-cum-ashram was meant to provide ‘spiritual knowledge’ to the people and teach them how to attain salvation. But the reality turned out to be quite the opposite.

The raiding team, which found the 17-year-old girl Meena, who had gone missing from Banda district a fortnight back, was shocked to see that there were dozens of minor girls in the school.