Spiritual leader, Asaram has been convicted by a Gujarat court for repeatedly raping a female follower

Asaram Bapu, a spiritual leader in India, has been convicted by a court in Gandhinagar for repeatedly raping a female follower in 2013 at his ashram in Surat. The judge is set to announce the sentence on Tuesday. He was convicted by Additional Sessions Judge DK Soni.

Asaram Bapu was convicted of various crimes including rape (Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code), unnatural sex (Section 377), outraging the modesty of a woman (Section 354), wrongful confinement (Section 346), criminal conspiracy (Section 120B), and destroying evidence (Section 201). According to the First Information Report filed with the Chandkheda police in Ahmedabad, the survivor was held captive at Asaram's ashram on the outskirts of Surat and was repeatedly raped from 2001 to 2006.

This is not the first conviction for Asaram. He is currently serving a life sentence in two separate sexual offense cases, in addition to other punishments. He has been in jail in Jodhpur since 2018 when he was transferred from Indore where he was arrested in 2013.