Watch: Vrindavan women thrash priest with lathis for molesting girls

By Yusuf Begg
IndiaToday.in
December 27, 2017

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mathura-vrindavan-women-thrash-baba-accused-of-molesting-minor-girls/1/1118897.html

Priests are supposed to help ordinary people get over their baser instincts. Besides giving religious prescriptions, they are also supposed to make us aware of social evils. Not this baba though.

A video that is going viral in social media that a priest accused of molesting girls is beaten up by locals in Mathura's Vrindavan.

The nearly 30-second video, shot most likely by a bystander on his phone shows a man holding the accused by his hair while two women thrash him with lathis.

Trying to defend himself, the accused baba grabs the lathis but that doesn't stop the furious women. They start slapping him.

While the women are taking the law in their own hands, onlookers urge them on to beat the priest. He was later arrested by the police.

But does this really surprise us? For many years babas have used their higher status to exploit women. The likes of Sant Rampal and Asaram Bapu are legion.

Earlier in December the Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya was in the news. Not for anything spiritual but for accusations that the ashram was being used for trafficking in women. Police have various ashrams and rescued scores of girls.

The founder of Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya Virendra Dev Dixit is on the run; he has been accused of rape by a former inmate of his ashram.

For many months this year the Indian public was given a daily dose of the salacious going ons at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters. The Dera's chief, the colourful Gurmeet Ram Rahim's flamboyant life came under the microscope.

The godman has been accused of sexual exploitation of two sadhvis as well as the murder of a journalist plus forced castrations. He has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for rape.

When it comes to raping disciples the first name that comes to mind is Asaram Bapu. The 76-year-old godman was, back in 2013, accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at his Jodhpur ashram.

A few months later two girls came forward accusing Asaram and his son of raping them in the mid-2000s. He is in jail waiting trial after his bail plea was dismissed a number of times.

The lifestyle of our ascetics is anything but spartan. They hardly practice what they preach, especially when it comes to vice.