A Fatehabad court in Haryana on Tuesday sentenced a 63-year-old self-styled godman Amarveer, known as Amarpuri or Jalebi Baba, to 14 years of jail for raping more than 100 women and making video clips of the crimes.
According to a report, the accused would allegedly drug the women who approached him for assistance and rape them. He used to videotape the act and then demand money from the victims by threatening to make the recordings public.
Additional district judge Balwant Singh awarded him 14 years’ jail under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act for raping a minor two times, 7 years jail each in two rape cases under Section 376-C of the Indian Penal Code and 5-year jail under Section 67-A of the IT Act. He was, however, acquitted in an Arms Act case, a Hindustan Times report stated.
All the sentences will run concurrently and the godman will spend 14 years behind bars, said Sanjay Verma, the counsel of the victims.
“He has been in jail for the last 4.5 years and will have to stay in jail for nine-and-a-half years. The accused Baba was acquitted in the Arms Act. Other details of the judgment will be revealed after seeing the copy of the order,” he added.
The Fast Track Court convicted him on January 5. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 35,000 on him.
Six of the several women who were victims showed up in court. On the basis of the statements of the three victims, the court pronounced the judgment.
What was the case?
In 2018, the Haryana Police detained Amarpuri from the Tohana town of Fatehabad and recovered 120 purported sex video clips from his mobile phone.
According to the Hindustan Times report, on July 19, 2018, an informer had shown a sex video clip to the then-Tohana police station house officer, Pradeep Kumar. On SHO’s complaint, the accused Godman was booked under sections 292, 293, 294, 376, 384, 509 of the Indian penal code and section 67-A of the IT act. A year earlier in 2017, the accused Godman Amarveer was booked under Sections 328, 376, 506 of the Indian penal code at Tohana city police station on a complaint filed by a woman.
The then Fatehabad women’s police cell in charge Bimla Devi had confirmed that 120 sex video clippings were recovered from the mobile phone of the accused.
The statements released by the police had then read, “It appears the person indulging in sexual activities in these clippings is the same baba, though we will get it examined from the cyber cell. Two of the victims have already come forward, though, it is yet to be verified whether their videos were also prepared. All video clippings have been prepared with the help of mobile phones.”
Hindustan Times further reported that Bimla Devi had said the women used to come to the self-styled Godman, who was a Tantrik (occultist), to resolve the problems related to ghosts.
“He used to offer drugs in some liquid to the women. It was alleged that he used to sexually exploit them. Later, Jalebi Baba used to blackmail these women to take money from them,” she had stated.
Who is Jalebi Baba?
Amarveer, a widower and father of four girls and two boys, moved to Tohana from Punjab's Mansa town in 1984. He ran a jalebi store there for about 13 years where he met an occultist who brought him into the occult practices.
He then disappeared from Tohana for a few years and came back nearly 20 years ago and built a house and a temple, where some followers, mostly women, started coming.