BHOPAL: Controversial godman Swami Vairagyanand Giri alias Mirchi Baba, who campaigned for the opposition Congress in the 2018 assembly polls and 2019 general elections in Madhya Pradesh has been arrested from Gwalior, for allegedly raping a young woman on the pretext of helping her conceive a child.
The godman who claims to be a Mahamandaleshwar of the Panchayati Niranjani Akhara was arrested from outside a hotel in Gwalior on Monday-Tuesday intervening night, just a few hours after an FIR was registered against him u/s 376 (rape), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 506 (criminal intimidation) at Bhopal’s Mahila Thana on the 28-year-old alleged rape survivor’s complaint.
“Acting on inputs provided by the Bhopal Police, he (Mirchi Baba) was arrested from outside a hotel in Gwalior and handed over to a team of Bhopal police,” Gwalior district police superintendent Amit Sanghi said on Tuesday.
He was subsequently brought to Bhopal by police and produced before a court on Tuesday. The court sent him into judicial custody till August 22, the Bhopal police commissioner Makarand Deouskar confirmed to The New Indian Express.
As per Bhopal police sources, the alleged rape survivor, a 28-years-old woman, hailing from Raisen district, had stated in the complaint about not having conceived child even four years after marriage.
She came to know from someone about the godman treating issueless women through tantra-mantra (rituals). Getting the godman’s details through a poster, the woman met him at his house in Bhopal’s Minal Residency Colony in Bhopal on July 17.
She further alleged that after taking her details, the Baba offered Bhabhoot (sacred ash) and Sabudana (sago), on consuming which she became unconscious. As she fell unconscious, the godman allegedly raped her and threatened her with dire consequences when she resisted the extreme act.
She was subsequently abandoned by husband, after he came to know about the incident, while she was narrating it to a close relative over phone. Since then she has been living at brother’s home.
Importantly, Mirchi Baba has been in news since the 2018 assembly polls and 2019 LS polls, when he campaigned for the Congress in the state. He had performed a major ritual with one quintal red chillies for victory of ex-CM Digvijaya Singh over BJP candidate Pragya Thakur in the 2019 LS polls in Bhopal and had announced to take Jal Samadhi if Singh lost the electoral contest. Singh ultimately lost the LS polls against Thakur by huge margin, after which he had sought permission from Bhopal district administration to take Jal Samadhi.
Recently, he had created a scene at a local body polls rally of MP Congress president Kamal Nath in Gwalior, when he was not given a place to sit on the stage.