An Indian guru, popularly known as 'Jalebi baba', has been jailed for 14 years for raping more than 100 women.
Amarveer, 63, also known as Amarpuri, was jailed under a law related to the protection of children from sexual offenses by a fast-track special court in northern Indian state of Haryana on Tuesday (10, reported The Independent.
According to reports, he has been found guilty of not only raping the women, but also making videos of the acts to blackmail victims. The judgment was on the basis of the statements given by three of his several victims.
“He has been in jail for the last 4.5 years and will have to stay in jail for nine-and-a-half years. The accused Baba was acquitted in the Arms Act. Other details of the judgment will be revealed after seeing the copy of the order," his advocate Sanjay Verma is reported to have said.
Verma added that the self-styled godman was acquitted in a separate case pertaining to the law on arms and ammunition.
'Jalebi baba' was arrested from Tohana town in Fatehabad district of Haryana in 2018.
Investigation that the 63-year-old widower, who earned a reputation as an occultist, used to drug women disciples before raping them and filming the act.
Later, he would threaten to release the video tapes in order to extract money from his victims. According to police, up to 120 of these clips were found on his phone.
“It appears the person indulging in sexual activities in these clippings is the same baba, though we will get it examined from the cyber cell,” a police official was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.
“Two of the victims have already come forward, though, it is yet to be verified whether their videos were also prepared. All video clippings have been prepared with the help of mobile phones.”
Reports said that Amarveer moved from Mansa in Punjab to Tohana in 1984. He is a father of two boys and four daughters. He ran a Jalebi stall for the first 13 years in Tohana, where he met an occultist who introduced him to this line of work.
He left Tohana for a while before returning over 20 years ago and constructing a house and a temple, where some followers, mostly women, started to show up.
His acquaintance's wife had accused him of raping her inside the temple in 2018, but he has managed to get bail several times in this case.
In July 2018, an informer had shown a sex video clip to the then Tohana police station house officer Pradeep Kumar. Upon Kumar's complaint, a case was registered against the godman.
In an earlier incident, Haryana’s Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was jailed for 20 years for raping two of his women disciples.
Another godman Asaram Bapu is now serving a life sentence for raping a minor.
In another such incident in the state, self-proclaimed godman Rampal, who ran the Satlok Ashram, is currently receiving a life sentence for the murder of four women and a baby who was 18 months old.
Karan Johar and Smriti Irani