Narayan Sai, son of Asaram, held guilty in a rape case

After his father the "self-proclaimed godman" Asaram was convicted for life for raping a minor girl in Rajasthan last year, Narayan Sai, who also claims to be a "Godman," was found guilty by a Surat court on Friday in a rape case lodged against him in 2013 by one of the two sisters based in the city.

The other sister has accused Asaram of rape at his Ahmedabad ashram whose trial is also going on.

The court held Sai guilty on all charges including rape and conspiracy. The lawyers associated with the case said that ten persons were tried, out of whom, five have been held guilty including Sai while five others associates including Monica, Ajay and Neha Diwan were acquitted. The other who were been found guilty are Hanuman, Ganga, Jamuna and Ramesh. There are 20 other accused in the case whose trial has been stayed by the court.

Quantum of sentence will be pronounced on April 30.

In 2013, one of the sisters had lodged an FIR against Narayan, in his mid 40s, for multiple rape. Two months later Sai was arrested from Delhi following a manhunt and since then he continues to be in jail. His bails applications were rejected by all the courts right from sessions, High Court to Supreme Court.

The victim in the FIR alleged that “between December, 2001 till the Holi of 2002 and repeatedly thereafter" she was raped by Narayan Sai. She alleged him of “intercourse against the order of nature, with assault and criminal force to victim with intention to outrage her modesty with assault or criminal force in wrongfully confining the victim in custody” among other charges.

In his defence, Sai argued before the court that the victim, despite these allegations, stayed at the ashram for next years from the alleged offence and worked at his ashram and worked as an administrator of the ashram in Surat. After she got married and left the ashram, almost 12 years later, she lodged the FIR.

The other sister of the victim also lodged an FIR with Ahmedabad police against Sai’s father Ashumal Harpalani alias Asaram for similar offence that including rape, unnatural sex, illegal confinement among others.

Following the arrests of father-son duo, a series of attacks on crucial witnesses ensued. At least three eye-witnesses who were closely associated with them were murdered including Amrut Prajapati, an ayurveda doctor, was shot dead outside his clinic in Rajkot, Akhil Gupta, a cook and aide of Asaram, was shot dead in his home town Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh and Kripal Singh, a witness in the Jodhpur rape case, died a day after he was shot at in Shahjehanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Sai is also facing trial for allegedly attempting to bribe policemen of Rs8 crore for assisting him in getting bail and acquittal from the case.