Ashram caretaker held for trying to implicate Asaram in murder

The former caretaker of Asaram Bapu's ashram here was on Thursday arrested for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to implicate the controversial godman in the alleged death of three children in his Jammu ashram.

"We have arrested Bhola Nath from a city area," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu, Atul Kumar Goel said, adding that he is being interrogated.

On October 17, police had booked Nath, a resident of Jaipur in Rajasthan, for conspiring to implicate Asaram by claiming that three children were buried in his ashram at Bhagwati Nagar here after being murdered.

A case against him has been registered under several sections of the law, police said.

Last month, a social activist, Dr Raj Kumar, had filed a criminal complaint in court saying that three children were murdered and buried inside Asaram's ashram as per the statement given by Bhola to a TV channel.

The court had then directed the police to register a case and start investigations.

During the probe, police had picked up a youth, Vikrant Sharma, who revealed that Bhola had telephoned and asked him to get some human skeletons and bury them inside the ashram so that he could tell the police that three children were buried inside the ashram after being murdered, police said.

Vikrant had produced before the court a CD of the phone conversation with Bhola Nath in this regard, they said.

Following court orders, police had lodged an FIR of criminal conspiracy against Bhola Nath, they said.

Seventy-two-year-old godman Asaram Bapu was arrested in August in a sexual assault case.