New Delhi: The lawyer of convicted self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, has sought one-week adjournment before Supreme Court as he will not be able to appear in the case on June 15. Advocate Siddharth Luthra is representing Asaram. The convicted godman had approached the top court seeking temporary suspension of his sentence and interim bail to undergo medical treatment for various ailments at an Ayurvedic centre near Haridwar in Uttarakhand.
The Rajasthan government has opposed the bail plea of Asaram before the apex court stating that he wants to change the place of his custody under the guise of seeking medical treatment. The state has said that Asaram, who had earlier sought bail for allopathic treatment of his ailments, has now prayed to be treated at an Ayurveda centre, only because his earlier round of petitions were not successful.
The father of the rape survivor in the Asaram case had moved the Supreme Court opposing the bail plea for the self styled godman. The plea by the father said that Asaram is "highly influential, politically connected" and has a "force of millions of blind followers around the country."
Read: SC adjourns hearing on Asaram Bapu's plea for treatment at Ayurvedic centre
Apprehending that his daughter and his family could be killed by Asaram's followers, the father in his plea stated that the godman has hired a killer Kartik Haldar, who killed and attacked eyewitnesses and confessed to the police that Asaram ordered the killings. The rape survivor's father said that during the course of the trial, he and his family members were threatened with dire consequences.
Bapu is a habitual offender and is facing trial for similar serious offences of rape before the Sessions Court at Gandhinagar, Gujarat and a criminal case before a Metropolitan Magistrate at Jodhpur, the petition stated. A Jodhpur court, on April 25, 2018, had sentenced Asaram to life in prison after finding him guilty of raping a teenage girl in his ashram in 2013. His accomplices Sharad and Shilpi were sentenced to 20 years in jail by the court in the same case for their roles. He was also convicted in a 2002 rape case and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Asaram is also facing a rape case in Surat in Gujarat.
Read: Victim's father opposes Asaram's bail plea in Supreme Court
(ANI)
