Woman alleges rape by three Swaminarayan sadhus

BHAVNAGAR: The sadhus of Swaminarayan sect have once again come under the scanner after a woman on Saturday accused three of them of raping her in Gadhada taluka of the district.

The complainant, a married woman who is a resident of Ahmedabad, said that she had applied for a job at the Swaminarayan Primary Teachers Training College at Gadhada.

The college is run by the Yoganand Swami Seva Samaj Trust.

According to the police complaint, the woman said she was asked to come to Gadhada by the college authorities on July 27 last. The three sadhus then raped her inside the college guest room the same day, police said, without clarifying why the complaint had been lodged almost after a month of the alleged crime.

The woman accused the sadhus of luring her to Gadhada by promising her a job in the college. No one has been arrested in this connection so far, police said.

In October last year, three Swaminarayan sadhus of the Khambha Gurukul of Amreli district were sentenced to 14 months imprisonment by a court in Dhari for sodomising a teenager.

Similarly, four persons, including a sadhu of the sect, were arrested in February 2005 for allegedly making sleazy CDs involving women.

In 2004, six Swaminarayan sadhus were sentenced to death by a Nadiad district court in a murder case. The same year a 12-year-old boy had filed a police complaint against a Swaminarayan sadhu at Ahmedabad for allegedly sodomising him.