INDIA
Ahmedabad.com
February 16, 2005
In a sex scandal involving Swaminarayan sect sadhus, the crime branch arrested four persons, including a priest belonging to the Swaminarayan temple in Junagadh, here on Tuesday.
The priest, Bhaktiswarup, and three others were making videos of sex acts and distributing it in the form of CDs. All were arrested under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act. It may be noted that in July 2004 three Swaminarayan sadhus belonging to the Kalupur temple were arrested for sodomy with a minor boy.
Additional commissioner of police D.G. Vanzara of the city crime branch said the video shooting of Swaminarayan sadhus in sexual acts with women was undertaken by waging factions of Vadtal Swaniinarayan temple with the purpose of defaming the perpetrators, with evidence. lie said police has obtained ('Ds being distributed by one of the warring factions to the followers in Ahmedabad, Surat and other places.
He said the CD shows three women having intercourse with different priests at different locations. He said the priests were exploiting the childless women under the pretext of helping them conceive by a "religious ritual". Mr. Vanzara said the video shooting was done with prior knowledge of the women concerned.
The CD contains video shootings at three different places: in a room at a Bharuch temple with a priest (his name not known) from the same temple, in a flat in Ahmedabad with Sadhu Harikirshna Farali of Vadtal and in a bungalow in Surat with a priest and his disciple.
Those arrested, apart from Bhaktiswarup, are Mansukh pictures, condoms, contraceptive pills and a copy of Vatsayan's Kama Sutra from the room of Bhaktiswarup at Junagadh Swaminarayan Temple.