Guwahati: Self-styled godman Asaram Bapu was given a life term in jail for the 2013 rape case.
The Gandhinagar Sessions Court on Tuesday sentenced self-styled Asaram to life in prison under Sections 376 and 377 in a sexual assault case.
The prosecution demanded life in jail and a large punishment for the self-styled godman in the case before a court in Gandhinagar, claiming that Asaram Bapu, who had been found guilty of rape in 2013, was a “habitual criminal.”
Sessions court judge D K Soni pronounced the ruling after hearing the arguments on the sentence’s length.
Asaram was accused of raping a 16-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh’s Shahajahanpur at his ashram in the Manai village near Jodhpur on the evening of August 15 in 2013. The following month, he was brought to Jodhpur Central jail, where he filed numerous bail petitions.
Asaram and four other people were charged in the case in November with extortion in return for sexual favours. Asaram was found guilty of rape, sodomy, molestation, unlawful confinement of the survivor using force, and criminal intimidation.
D K Soni acquitted six others including Asaram’s wife, Lakshmi; his daughter, Bharti; his Motera ashram office-bearer Dhruvben Balani; employee Jaswantiben Chaudhary; and his followers Nirmala, alias Dhel, and Mira, alias Baglo.