Asaram Bapu's victim seeks CBI probe after murder of witnesses

LUCKNOW | BAREILLY : After a key witness in the rape case against self-styled godman Asaram Bapu was killed, the 16-year-old victim demanded a CBI probe into the matter, even as police conducted searches in Shahjahanpur and Lucknow ashrams to nab the assailants today.

"I want the Prime Minister to ensure justice to me by ordering a CBI probe into the 2013 (rape) incident," the victim said in Bareilly.

Meanwhile, police launched a manhunt to nab the three assailants who killed 35-year-old Kripal Singh in Puwayan area of Shahjahanpur when he was on his way home from the market on July 10 night.

Teams of Crime Branch, Special Task Force (STF) and UP Police have been deployed to arrest the killers and searches were conducted at ashrams of Asaram in Shahjahnapur and Lucknow, a senior police officer said.

Singh, who had received serious bullet injuries, was rushed from Shahjahanpur to a Bareilly hospital where he succumbed late on July 11 night.

In a statement before Additional City Magistrate, Singh had alleged that people connected to Asaram were threatening him for the last few days.

Police said Singh was an employee of a transport firm, whose owner's daughter had lodged a case against 74-year-old Asaram for allegedly sexually assaulting her at his ashram near Jodhpur in Rajasthan in 2013.

Singh was a key witness and his statement in the case against Asaram had been recorded about three months ago.

Asaram has been in a jail in Jodhpur since September 2013. Two months later, he, along with his son Narayan Sai, was booked for the alleged rape of two sisters at their ashram in Gujarat's Surat.

In the last attack on Asaram's witness, his cook was shot dead in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in January.

Nine witnesses have been attacked so far and three of them, including Kripal Singh, have died.