A court in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar Wednesday sentenced self-styled godman Asaram Bapu to life imprisonment in a 2013 rape case. The 81-year-old was convicted in a rape case filed by a former woman disciple in 2013.
Sessions court judge D K Soni pronounced the ruling after hearing the arguments on the quantum of sentence.
A district and sessions court in Gandhinagar on Monday held Ashupal Harpalani, alias Asaram Bapu, guilty of rape and criminal intimidation and acquitted five other co-accused in the case.
Among those acquitted is Asaram’s wife.
District and Sessions Court judge D K Soni held Asaram guilty under IPC Sections 376 (2)(c) (being on the management or staff of a place of custody established by or under any law for the time being in force or of a woman’s or children’s institution takes advantage of his official position and commits rape on any inmate of such place), 377 (unnatural sex), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(2) (criminal intimidation), 354 (assault with intent to outrage modesty of woman), and 357 (assault t
Asaram is currently lodged in a Jodhpur jail, where he is serving life sentence in another case of raping a minor girl at his ashram in Rajasthan in 2013.
o wrongfully confine a pertain).
