THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a fresh twist to the Swami Gangeshananda Theerthapada genital mutilation case, the Crime Branch will now conduct a reinvestigation to ascertain whether there was a conspiracy behind the incident.
A source told TNIE that the decision follows several lapses which had occurred during the first probe. "The previous investigation did not properly look into the various aspects of the case. It instead blindly relied on the initial statement of the woman who had slashed the genital of the self-styled godman. The conspiracy angle wasn’t examined even after the woman changed her stand," an officer said.
The incident dates back to May 2017, when the woman, who was a law student at the time, apparently acted in self-defence. In her initial statement to the police, the woman had accused Swami Gangeshananda Theerthapada of sexually abusing her since she was a teenager. But the woman later changed the statement before the special court and the high court.
At the special court, she changed her initial statement and accused the police of forcing her to give a statement against the swami. According to her, she had never accused the swami of rape. She also demanded a CBI probe into the case, but it was subsequently dismissed by the court.
The swami too had changed his version of the incident when the case came up before the court. Initially, when he was admitted to the medical college after the incident, he had told the doctors there that he had cut his genitals himself. However, later, he accused his disciple Ayyappadas of the crime.
In her initial statement, the woman had referred to Ayyappadas as her friend. A month later, she filed a police complaint against Ayyappadas, alleging that he had raped her after promising marriage. She also alleged that he had defrauded her family and the swami of `6 lakh and `8 lakh, respectively.