Three women aides of Delhi Baba arrested for harassment, intimidation at Vasant Kunj Institute
Three female aides of Delhi Baba, who has been accused of sexually harassing at least 17 students at a private institute in Delhi, have been arrested.
The women were working in different positions at Sri Sharada Institute of Indian Management in Vasant Kunj, where the self-styled godman, Chaitanyananda Saraswati, served as chairman.
Chaitanyananda Saraswati, whose original name is Parthasarathy, was accused of sexual harassment in August.
The complaint also named these three women for allegedly convincing women to give in to his demands and delete evidence against him.
He was arrested early Sunday from a hotel in Agra and was remanded to five-day police custody on Sunday.
The women, Shweta Sharma (Associate Dean), Bhavna Kapil (Executive Director) and Kajal (Senior Faculty) have been arrested for their role in abetment, intimidation and destruction of evidence in the case.
During interrogation, they admitted that they worked on the instructions of the baba and put pressure on the students on the pretext of discipline and other things, the police said.
Baba has no regrets: Cops
The police said that the 62-year-old showed no remorse about his actions.
After Chaitanyananda's arrest, three mobile phones and an iPad were recovered from him, including a phone that gave him access to CCTV footage of the campus and hostels.
Evidence recovered from his phone showed him making indecent comments on some women students' yoga photos.
Authorities have also frozen about Rs. 8 crore in multiple bank accounts and fixed deposits linked to him.
Chaitanyananda had been abroad since July, returning to India on August 6.
After a case was filed against him, a Lookout Circular (LOC) was issued to prevent him from leaving the country. He allegedly shuttled between Vrindavan, Mathura and Agra, using taxis and staying in budget hotels to avoid arrest.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), he forced students to visit his quarters late at night, sent inappropriate messages at odd hours and monitored their movements via CCTV feeds.
He and his aides allegedly claimed links to the Prime Minister's office to secure cooperation while evading authorities.
A former student at the institute told NDTV that the main accused had been harassing women students for at least nine years.
He would take away their phones and keep them in separate rooms with extra facilities, he claimed.
"Their phones would be taken away and they would be given expensive phones like those by Blackberry and Apple, so that he would have access to them and chats and messages could be deleted. The students were told not to talk to their family and relatives," said the student who had enrolled in a two-year course in 2016.
He alleged that one of his friends was targeted by Chaitanyananda in 2016.
"Initially, things seemed normal. But then they said she would be sent abroad and to Mathura for an internship. Sending just one person? I have never heard of something like that.
She suspected something amiss and was told she would have to leave in three days. She then decided to leave the institute, and I helped her do so," he said.
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