V.K. Narasimhan on the 1993 Sathya Sai Baba murders

It is not without some misgivings that I report on these matters, but I am impelled by my duty that certain facts should be recorded accurately and truthfully. I was grateful to Sathya Sai Baba for some form of physical healing many years ago, and had various paranormal experiences relating to him. Unlike the majority of Sai followers, however, that does not mean I must gag myself regarding many important extremely negative facts I know to be true about Sai Baba, his ashrams and apologist followers. What VKN confided to me had sometimes caused me doubts. He told me of experiences and facts known only to insiders at the ashram which he could not speak openly about, not least due to his own and others’ security. Despite all that, I trusted so much in Sai Baba that I was determined to rationalise everything nicely to make it all fit the Procrustean bed of his claims about himself, his work and ‘mission’. I wrote many articles on Narasimhan’s request for Sanathana Sarathi also to clear up such doubts. Despite my trust and dearest hopes, I came to learn the details of many covered-up incidents, including some of the gravest kinds of criminal behaviour – not least from V.K. Narasimhan.

The most important piece of information I ever received from Narasimhan was also the most shattering. Had Narasimhan – in whose integrity I had full faith – not been willing to give me a frank account of what happened, I might well still have believed that Sai Baba, his brother, the ashram and the Sathya Sai Central Trust were entirely innocent of anything illegal. But I am now certain they were not! I guarantee on my honour that what follows is as true and accurately stated as I can make it. When I asked Narasimhan in January 1996 in private what had occurred during the murder episode back in June 1993, he said of Sai Baba’s top officials, “they did a terrible thing”, using those very words. He told how those involved included top Prashanthi Nilayam ashram officials and Central Trust members, and particularly Sai Baba’s younger brother, Janakiramiah. The police, once they finally arrived on the scene, were blackmailed by these people into shooting the four intruders and claiming it was in self-defense. Narasimhan, whose word I just cannot doubt on this, attested the above to me as indubitable fact. Though he was not personally present to the killings, having been asleep in his apartment, he conferred with insiders as soon as he arrived on the scene. Sai Baba’s younger brother, Jankiramaiah was a multi-millionaire property owner and entrepreneur who was promoted by Sai Baba virtually to control the Sathya Sai Central Trust directly after the murders incident. Janakiramiah had already openly claimed to the press repeatedly and insistently that the intruders had intended to assassinate his elder brother (despite Sai Baba’s own published denial that there was any attempt on his life)! VKN further recounted to me a later conversation at which he had been presentwhen Janakiramiah discussed the incident with “a very high official in the Indian Government”, who it later became clear was the Home Minister, S.B. Chavan.  Chavan had congratulated Janakiramiah on having had the four intruders shot by the police and one of them commented “Dead men tell no tales“, whereupon they actually laughed together. Narasimhan was deeply shocked. When one considers his position at that time, it is easy to see how powerless he was to stand up and announce what he knew. His life would almost certainly have been in danger.

V.K.N also told me how the ashram/Central Trust authorities had a lever with which to blackmail the police to execute by shooting the four youths who had in a mutual struggle knifed to death Baba’s two attendants. The blackmail was based on information they had of the police corruption. I happened to know independently of the incident used as leverage – the police allowed two brothers who had slashed a devotee lady from Switzerland to death to steal her money, in return for that hidden money – some Rs. 80 thousand.  After years of being unable to accept what the facts implied about Sai Baba himself – my view of everything around Sai Baba eventually collapsed. It obviously destroyed any faith in Baba’s alleged universal benevolence, even though he may have given no explicit murder instructions himself (as some have however attested) but just let things happen. Armed only with knives, the youths could have been disarmed one by one before they were allowed to exit the room or, at least only shot to disable them if they threatened the police.

After V.K Narasimhan’s wife died, Sai Baba called him for something or other practically every day and he spent many long hours close by Sathya Sai Baba and invariably was prominent in festivals, in occasional interviews, and rode about with him in cars etc. It is significant that a person so often with Sai Baba held the opinions he did, and voiced them even though privately. Meanwhile, I am taking full responsibility for making this information common knowledge, both about the amazing abilities and activities of Sai Baba told me by VKN and about the doubtful and darker sides of what has gone on very close to him. Especially after VKN’s wife died, he became virtually dependent on living in the ashram for he had grown into the way of life there after 20 years in frequent association with SB. Since he gave up his house and resided in the ashram, VKN had virtually – if gradually – fallen more and more under the charm, but also the power, of SB. While all devotees do this to a considerable extent, those coming from abroad can more easily break out if the need should arise, as is seen in the fall away of prominent foreign devotees after the 1999 revelations, and by the fact that very few prominent Indian followers revoke SB, and certainly not in public.

I recount many details about VKN’s evidence elsewhere, click here.