Murders in Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Abode of Supreme Peace’ – 3

So that people involved with Sathya Sai Baba issues might not forget the horrendous murders in his bedroom in 1993 and their cover-up by the Government of India, the graphic evidence is circulated once again. These unsolved and covered-up murders – where Sathya Sai Baba was present but was never even questioned by police – will haunt Indian authorities for decades to come, and very rightly so. No form of redress – let alone anything approaching justice – was ever allowed for any of the bereaved – or for those affected by Sathya Sai Baba’s staff purges of ashramites whose lives had been dedicated to service under the figurehead of Sathya Sai Baba. Factual analysis of these photos by Basava Premanand:-

Pic. 12 to 15 are the photographs of Suresh Shatharam Prabhu, one of the four alleged assailants.
What the FIR states about the shooting dead the four assailants is that at about 11:30pm four assailants armed with daggers suddenly opened doors (of Baba’s bed room) pounced on police, attacked and caused injuries to three with a view to kill. As police could not over power them, in self defense, 5 police opened fire killing all the four assailants in the mandir. According to post mortem report all the four assailants were shot dead point blank at less than 6 inches distance. If the assailants had rushed out of the room, they ought to have been shot outside and not inside. The position of their bodies prove that all were shot inside the rooms and not from outside.

Pic. 12 shows Suresh Shantharam Prabhu with his head on the door step. In the 13th photograph taken from his back, his legs are in the middle of the room and there is a pink coloured bath towel on his right side. At his back on the left is a fallen teapoy. In the 12th and 13th photographs the position of the legs of the teapoy is different. Moreover if the teapoy was really mere it would not have been possible to open the door. If the assailant had come out of the door to stab the police, he would not have been shot inside the center of the room, from the back. There is not a drop of blood on the floor when he had been shot at less than 6″ distance at the back of the right chest.

The position of the body in Pic. 12 and 13 shows that he was shot from behind from the room. When the four alleged assailants were shot dead at less than 6″ distance, what was the necessity of 5 police shooting them is not known. Moreover the bullets which have pierced them have not been checked as to from which rifles they were shot. In the photographs 12,13 and 14, the body is lying in face down position, while in photograph 15 the body is on tl1e back with face up. It is also not possible to identify the room and as per the CB-CID remand report it is the bed room of Radhakrishna. On the far end of the room a bed sheet has fallen down half on the ground. The wound on the back of right chest is visible but it is dry. As the bullet did not come out of the body, there cannot be blood in the front side of the chest. But photograph 15 shows blood on the right and left of the shirt in the front and also on the sleeves. In photograph 12,13 and 14 the eyes are shut while in photograph 15 eyes are open. Some one has raised the shirt and so his chest and part of the stomach is seen. His right hand is in a different position in photograph 15 from that in photographs 12,13 and 14. There is a drop of blood on the floor near the doorsteps and two knives. If Suresh Shantharam Prabhu after being shot in the middle of the room fell down dead the knives cannot fall outside. The position of the two knives looks as if some one had placed them there. The two hands under his body proves that he had not thrown the knives away. More over, no gloves is seen in the room or outside. So the fingerprints on the knives ought to have been checked by the police. There is some blood on his pants near the right leg.

Pic.l6,17,18,l9 are of Sai Ram a student of Baba’s University. The warden has not explained how he came out of the hostel at night when it is claimed that the hostel rules are very strict. The snake bed points out that he is in Sai Baba’s bedroom. His legs are inside the door and so he was shot inside the bedroom. He has been shot at the left side of the neck from a distance less than 6″. If he was running out of the room and stab the police it would not have been possible to shoot him at the left side of the neck. His leg and body position proves that he was inside the room facing the bed.

When his palms are under his body it would not have been possible for him to remove the gloves from his hand and throw it behind his head. There is no blood on the gloves also. The blood on the planks of the door proves that he was shot from inside with the door closed. Splashes of blood are there around him up to the hips and a pool of blood in front of his face. A neat white folded cloth is also splashed with blood which would not have come from the neck injury. There is a box and a small knife near his knee joint, also a blue bag, under his left foot there is a white cloth.
In Photograph 17 there is a rope above his head in the corner of the room. The eyes are closed in photograph l6,17, 1 8, while in photograph 19 it is wide open. Someone has raised his shirt and his stomach part is seen with his left hand on it. His mouth is open and everything looks unnatural.

In all the photographs the jeans and shirt are clean without blood stains. In usual course the blood would have sprouted out immediately he was shot on the neck and drenched his dress. It is also not possible to identify the room in photograph 19.

Pic.20,21,22 and 23 are of Jagannatham. His body is lying on his right side with legs towards the door and head towards the cot and the face towards the wall. There is a watch on his left hand and his left palm is near his face. He has been shot on his right palm, on the left side of the axilla piercing the left side of the chest and another shot on the right side of the 2nd sutor costal area lacerated up to the right mammary area. Here also he has been shot from inside the room and not from outside the door. There is an object near his right palm. The floor is clean and though blood is seen on the sleeves of the right hand in pic.20, the blood is not visible in pic.2l and 22. Pic.23 is with face up. There are blotches of blood on the right side of the chest but his hand position differs from the other photographs. While in photographs 20 and 21 his left hand touches his nose, photograph 22 shows his left hand away from the nose.
Pic.24 is of Suresh Kumar with Baba. He was very near to Baba and had collected lots of mementos from him. So also other assailants. Pic.25,26,27,28 are the murder scene of Suresh Kumar in Sai Baba’s bed room.

In pic.25 and 27 you can see his feet in the space of a wooden almirah. This very clearly proves that he had not dashed out of Baba’s bed room to stab the police and really he was shot while hiding behind the almirah. He was shot in the left eye and the brain was lacerated, the 2nd shot was on the right thigh and the 3rd shot in the lateral side of the left wrist. All shots were from less than 6″ distance. There is a blood pool around him down the waist and not beyond the thigh. Though the 2nd shot was on the right thigh there is no blood on the right side of the pants. Both the hands are with blood but the blood had not splashed around after the fall. The two knifes are clean at the handle and the one near to him, the blade has blood stains. There are two gloves near him one as if dipped in blood and the other spotless. When he would have died immediately he was shot in the eye there would not have been any time to remove the gloves after having been shot on the left wrist. There is also a part of white cloth touching the red ‘gloves without any blood on it. His shirt and pants are almost spotless. In photographs 25,26,27 he has fallen on his left side. The photograph 28 shows him fallen on his back and the hands are not in the same position as in other 3 photographs 25,26,27.

These murder photographs seem to have been taken alter the bodies are moved from the place of murder and suit the built up story in the FIR by the Circle Inspector of police Gangadhar Reddy, at the direction of H.J.Dora who had rushed to Puttaparthi on the 6th night itself from Hyderabad.

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See also overview of the 1993 bedroom murders and links to evidence pages follow-up

Murders in the Prashanthi temple – reflections 1 On how I came to learn of the murders in the bedroom of Sai Baba, and how – despite misgivings – I rationalized the matter for some years until I was awoken to the realities by V.K. Narasimhan’s private confidences. Also: Murders in the Prashanthi temple – reflections 2

See also the two preceding blogs on this:

• Murders in ‘The Abode of Supreme Peace’ [Prashanthi Nilayam] -2
• Murders in The Abode of Supreme Peace temple – 1

Murders in The Abode of Supreme Peace temple – 1

In case anyone might forget these horrendous murders and their cover-up by the Government of India, the graphic description needs to be circulated once again. This murder case will haunt Indian authorities for decades to come, and very rightly so. It is not even one of the most serious miscarriages of justice, because no form of justice was allowed for any of the bereaved or those affected by Sathya Sai Baba’s staff purges of ashramites whose lives had been dedicated to service under the figurehead of Sathya Sai Baba.

The Prashanthi Nilayam temple (mandir) is the massive building where the 3 domes are covered with gold – the residence of Satya Sai Baba with a plinth area of 35’x90’ with a first floor of the same dimension. The ground floor from left up to 75 feet length is used as a prayer hall and the end rooms on the right is used by Sai Baba for personal interviews with a staircase leading to the first floor which is occupied by the godman, his personal aide Radha Krishna and other body guards including the trust member Col.Joga Rao. Tehelka Com November 29,2000 article states that the Sathya Sai Baba is ringed with two concentric circles of Israel-trained and armed security personnel, close-circuit television, wireless communications with Uzis slung on their shoulders.

When actual murders were carried out and Sai Baba got the case closed, this alone proves he is not one practising Sathya Dharma, Shanthi and Prema. Note  the entrance to the interview room on the ground floor where selected devotees wait. 

We see photos of the interview room where the four Sai Baba aides are alleged to have been stabbed by the four alleged assailants out of which two died. The blue door leads to the staircase leading to the first floor. Strangely the wooden throne used by Sai Baba while giving interviews is missing in the room. There is a pool of blood in the centre of the room on the left side which is alleged to have gushed out of the stab injuries of the four aides.

There is a stick in the middle of the blood pool and a metal rod at the end of the blood pool facing the blue door. How these happened to be in the room is not investigated.

According to the FIR it is alleged that the four assailants entered into Baba’s ground floor room on pretext of handing over a telegram to Baba and the four aides objected them and that said assailants attacked and stabbed them with daggers indiscriminately. It doesn’t look like 8 persons (four aides and four assailants) were fighting and being stabbed When someone attacks, one does not stand still but try to evade the attack and escape. So the stabbing would not have happened at a particular place. If four had fallen down after being stabbed indiscriminately there would have been their foot marks and body marks in the blood pool. The splashed blood would have been in different places in the room. There are rope pieces strewn around the spattered blood. The police have not investigated who were tied with ropes – the alleged aides or the alleged assailants.

If someone had tied the alleged aides with ropes, the question of the assailants stabbing them does not arise. And if the alleged assailants were tied with ropes murdered and shifted to Sai Baba’s and Radhakrishna’s bed rooms, the question of the jumping on police to kill them do not arise. Therefore the police drama of firing 31 rounds of bullets was a farce. These rope pieces prove that the aides were not tied by the alleged assailants nor were they stabbed by them.

Moreover the feet of the 4 assailants would have been drenched with blood if they had stabbed the aides went to upstairs to do away Swamy as stated in the FIR there would have been foot prints of blood leading to the stairs but the floor after the blood pool leading to the door is clean without a speck of blood.

Bottom right is the staircase with doors open (the photograph seems to have been made up out of two exposures). While there are no footprints in blood on the floor after the door, surprisingly blood is seen sprinkled on the steps and 3 streamlets of blood flowing up to the floor on the doorsteps. This is unnatural and the police have not explained how the blood suddenly appeared on the doorsteps and the stairs. They also do not look like the footprints of blood of the four assailants. So if it was true that the four assailants had indiscriminately stabbed the four aides, their foot prints in blood would have been seen surely on the floor and the stairs or where ever they walked. Also when the door to the stairs is seen closed, it is strange that the blood has splashed on the stairs.

See also

• Murders in Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Abode of Supreme Peace’ – 3
• Murders in ‘The Abode of Supreme Peace’ [Prashanthi Nilayam -2

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Suicides for ‘not getting Sai darsan’ etc.

Deaths by accident, suicides and murders have occurred quite regularly at Sathya Sai Baba ashrams or in connection with his darshan (or lack of it). Even his closest servitors have suffered unnecessarily and died in great pain (Prof. Kasturi, V.K. Narasimhan, Kutumb Rao), while his biggest donor’s wife, Barbara Sinclair, died in a taxi crash on her way to see Sathya Sai Baba who had called her specifically from the US. A lady was slashed to death in her new room at Prashanthi Nilayam, and a number of foreigners have been reported as having disappeared without trace over the years. Three devotees died in an easily avoidable accident when the dome of the Spiritual Heritage Museum came crashing down on them. One of his favorite students died in a car wreck, another’s body was found burned in Puttaparti (see Cover-up of Murder at the Sathya Sai College, Puttaparthi, and so on and on. Not to forget the murder of two of his servitors and subsequent execution of the four devotees in his own bedroom in 1993! The list of suicides connected to Sathya Sai Baba is considerable (see examples here) and below:-

Email Correspondence with ARORA, VISHAL

As part of his researches, Vishal Arora contacted both Sathya Sai Baba proponents and dissidents. As his article shows with all clarity, he was unable to penetrate the wall of silence and propaganda that surrounds all Sathya Sai Baba and all his officials and ashram people. Gerald Moreno went straight into an offensive to try to pressure Arora into acting as his mouthpiece, which failed dismally, of course. As is his wont, Moreno speculated over why I was not on-line for two weeks in the month or so prior to Arora’s article’s, implying that I was in India meeting him. Far from it, I was travelling in the Western hemisphere only.

In fact, Moreno is extremely frustrated by the fact that no serious journalist or researcher will take any notice of what he writes, not as soon as they read his diatribes and falsifications. He was rejected by journalists in USA and one in Norway (at Aftenposten, who contacted me after an e-mail exchange with him which gave her the right picture well enough. She thought he was childish! Moreno wrote back to her that he was “very disappointed”!). He was up in arms over Tulasi Srinivas, who mentioned –  sometimes inaccurately and with much censorship of our evidence – the researches of Brian Steel, Barry Pittard and myself… but gave Moreno’s conspiracies the cold shoulder altogether. He has also been given the cold shoulder by my friend and colleague, Erlendur Haraldsson (in psychological and para-psychological matters), who simply mailed back to the mischievous Moreno how we are old friends. Everything I wrote about Haraldsson on my web pages is true (my wife can attest to the content of many conversations about Sai Baba’s egomania etc. he and I had). Of course, I have the proof of my various claims about his opinions in Haraldsson’s own e-mails to me, of which I have at least 50.

Thus, Vishal Arora was no doubt drawn more and more into a sceptical attitude regarding Sathya Sai Baba by Moreno’s phoney friendly advances, though he did not communicate much with the sceptics. He e-mailed me on the advice of the dissident Serguei Badaev, former Sathya Sai Organization President in Moscow, quoting him as follows:-
“We are continually being persecuted by various Sai Baba supporters, not least by Murali Krishna Yachendra… related to a most prominent Sai Baba follower in India. I have, for example, received a public death threat not so long ago too.” To this I replied:-

From: rero@getmail.no
To: vishalarora_in@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: About Sai Baba
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 15:41:19 +0200

Dear Mr. Vishal Arora,
Thank you for contacting me!
I was the national leader of the Sathya Sai Centre in Oslo and contact person for the national Organization for most of 18 years in Norway until 2000.
As to the death threat I received, it was sent as a comment to my wordpress blog and can be viewed below the blog at https://robertpriddy.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/2164/
After receiving that threat, I reported it to the Oslo Police. Due to lack of resources and the fact that the threat was made from the USA, the police decided they could not pursue the matter. WordPress provide the IP and e-mail address given. This was as follows:-

sathya88 –   mohan88hg@gmail.com –  137.131.206.70   –  2008/11/26 at 1:08 am
Robert Priddy,
You are son of a Bastard for sure I can tell you that. Sai Baba is god and his devotees love to see him on the golden chariot. If even swamy doesnot want golden things we want him to see majestically. If you come in front of me I will kill you man mohan

I tracked down the geo location to the USA. It is in San Diego, California. I replied to the e-mail with the warning that it was reported to the police. If you search Google for the e0-mail in question you now find several entries, including the phone number of mohan (he runs San Diego boats and his phone no. is 858 587 4829 !! I have not contacted him. (Since I did not know this, perhaps I should report him to his local police… I have not considered that before.)
See http://www.google.com/search?q=%22mohan88hg%40gmail.com%22&hl=en&lr=&filter=0
He also has a profile at the following web address: http://www.spoke.com/profiles/mohan88hg@gmail.com
If you consider it o.k. to contact him, please inform me what result you may get.
In case you do not know of my long involvement etc. with Sathya Sai Baba and why I eventually joined the the exposure of him, please visit my main website at http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/ There I have documented a massive amount of material concerning him, which I guarantee is completely truthful and true as far as my knowledge reaches.

Murali Krishna Yachendra (former teacher at Sathya Sai College and an insider at Prashanthi Nilayam) is the grandson of the Raja of Venkatagiri and his case is an interesting one. The entire matter is documented in a book published by Skeptic Book Club (Basava Premanand) entitled “Sabotage by Murali Krishna Yachendra” in which the countless e-mail exchanges between him and expose activists is printed. An extremely revealing attempt to confound activists…but it was foiled. Premanand lodged a complaint to the police (see attached scan) and the District Collector – without result!! See a resume of the matter and document scans etc. at
http://www.saibabaexpose.com/Yachendra/Murali_Krishna_Yachendra.htm

As to the question of persecution by Sai Baba activists, there is a catalogue of such things. Firstly the victims of sex abuse and their families have been persecuted through their social networks, employment etc.(according to many highly confidential e-mails I have received – I cannot release this information since numerous murders in India have been recorded – many by B. Premanand, but – of course – the execution in cold blood of four devotees in June 1993. The subsequent CBI investigation was hindered then finally quashed from top governmental level just before the result was pending! This can be verified on-line from numerous reports – not least in the BBC Interview with V.P.B. Nair – Former Home Secretary of Andhra Pradesh State at http://www.exbaba.com/comments_on/_the_secret_swami/nair.htm

Then there is a massive internet campaign, much of it by Sai admirer Gerald Joe Moreno of Las Cruces, New Mexico, but also by numerous others… including hundreds of bulletin board libels, lies and personal attacks etc. on over a hundred persons who have spoken out about the sex abuses and similar instances of criminal events connected to Sathya Sai Baba and/or his institutions.

Please feel free to pose any questions you may have… and you are free to print anything which I have stated here, also anything on my main website or my main blog at robertpriddy.wordpress.com.

Thanking you for your interest,
Sincerely
Robert Priddy

Arora’s replied to me only briefly. He did not use any of my materials as such, though his opinions are very much in line with my own, it turned out. He asked how he might contact the Rahms, Lisa Tice and Hari Sampath, on which I informed him.
The result I later saw was as follows:-

As to alleged “Screen-cap fraud”: Gerald Moreno accuses others who are innocent of fraud – who have never changed a single word of what has been recorded from the internet, of that which he is guilty himself! He has nothing whatever substantive to charge me with, so he descends to hair-splitting matters about difference in colour and contrast, arrangement of information etc. as being ‘fraudulent’. His one aim is to have as many accusations on-line as possible, which seem at first glance to surfers to be something. On closer inspection he is seen to be a fanatical obsessive hate promoter. Further, he has frequently left out very significant words in his ‘quotations’ of Basava Premanand and in some of his otherwise also heavily-biased and selective presentations of what I have written.
See Gross fraudulence: Gerald Moreno tries to ridicule Robert Priddy and Gerald Moreno: absurd screencap fraud claims contra Priddy

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Vishal Arora Indian journalist exposes Sathya Sai Baba

‘The Caravan’ Magazine on Sathya Sai Baba by independent investigative journalist Vishal Arora states:-

As Arora found out, there is a most powerful and widely extended cadre of Sathya Sai Baba worshippers in power in India, most of whom having been outspoken as worshipping devotees for many years. Prestige, favours, money and, above all, the fear or ridicule for having been so thoroughly taken in by a widely accused pedophile and accomplice to murder of his own devotees is a powerful factor in their continued fear (and blocking) of investigations of any kind into Sathya Sai Baba. Vishal Arora writes:- There is no lack of powerful, high-profile people cutting across political parties and spheres, professing their faith in Sai Baba. Justice PN Bhagwati, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India in 1985 and 1986, calls him “divinity incarnate” in Baba is God in Human Form: Experiences of Divinity of Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. In the same book, Shivraj Vishwanath Patil, currently Governor of Punjab and former Union Home Minister, says, “He is the knowledge; He is the wisdom personified.” Shankarrao Bhavrao Chavan, former Chief Minister of Maharashtra for two terms and former Union Home and Finance Minister, says he has “no hesitation in saying, whatever position and status I have is purely because of Bhagwan’s blessings.” And further:-

Sunday at Prashanthi Nilayam – part 3

Please go to https://robertpriddy.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/the-puttaparti-police-expansion-and-sai-baba-cont/

 

The ‘Abode of Peace’ ashram- the murder victims

V.J. Ram (aka Janakiram) was a senior Indian CID officer who received the President’s Police Medal for having solved many difficult cases. His book on ‘The Godmen of India’ is extremely revealing, especially as regards the long history of criminal incidents connected to Sathya Sai Baba and his coterie. His sensational book is about several ‘godmen’ in India into whom he has investigated and found to be bogus and surrounded by criminal allegations with much circumstantial evidence to uphold them.

See Top bureaucrats, high rank police officers formed security wing for Sai Baba

See also BBC Interview (plus video clip) on the cold-blooded murders in Sai Baba’s apartment with V.P.B. Nair, Former Home Secretary of Andhra Pradesh State

Overview – the 1993 bedroom murders and follow-up Further to this The 1993 murder episode graphically explained Murders in the Prashanthi temple – reflections 1 On how I came to learn of the murders in the bedroom of Sai Baba, and how – despite misgivings – I rationalized the matter for some years until I was awoken to the realities by V.K. Narasimhan’s private confidences. Also: Murders in the Prashanthi temple – reflections 2   ‘The Godmen of India’ can be ordered here – click

‘The Pioneer’ report on the Sathya Sai Baba bedroom murder case

The Pioneer, New Delhi 10-6-1993

Comment: One sees here again the most doubtful role of the Puttaparthi police in this whole episode, which is why the investigation was soon taken entirely out of their hands and given to the CBI, which worked on the case effectively, Before the report was due, the two main officers conducting the investigation were suddenly posted away somewhere else… one can easily figure the reason. Because not log after that, the entire official investigation was quashed (by Home Minister S.B. Chavan with the endorsement of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, both of whom visited Sathya Sai Baba regularly, especially after the murders! For back-up documentation of all this, see:-
See overview of the bedroom murders and more links

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Police chiefs in India can escape justice

Indian public outraged at police invulnerability The case of S.P.S. Rathore – a police chief who brutally raped a 14-year old girl and escaped justice, whereupon she killed herself – was nearly buried by the media and government. However, the gradually awakening wider Indian public rose in anger and have made this a landmark case in bringing some accountability to police chiefs in India. This cover-up is but one of hundreds of similar reported cases of unpunished police killings and massive brutality in the past decade, among the most serious of which is the continuing Indian government’s cover-up of the police executions of four students of Sathya Sai Baba in his bedroom in 1993. The cover-up for this constantly self-proclaimed God Incarnate and world saviour is to protect the reputation of India’s five Prime Ministers, four Presidents, the judiciary and many top people in India others who had already worshipped this widely accused pedophile, sex abuser and proven ignoramus plus murder accomplice for decades before he was exposed.

What Rathore said and the government backed Dinker Vashisht Posted: Tue Dec 22 2009, 06:04 hrs Chandigarh: “Despite being replete with loopholes and improbabilities, S P S Rathore’s version of the “facts” in the Ruchika molestation case found strong backing in the corridors of power.” (Indian Express 22/12/2009)
Comment: Yet the “facts” were false and the authorities did not car to examine them!

In THE HINDU January 4, 2010  S. Viswanathan wrote: “What significantly differentiates the S.P.S. Rathore case from comparable atrocities of the past is the progressive and healthy shift it has caused in the attitude of the mainstream news media and people, particularly those drawn from the middle classes, to sex-related crimes against women and children. Unlike in the past, this activist concern goes beyond sympathy for the victims. It extends to more substantive and wide-ranging aspects such as the legal rights of the affected, the relevant laws, the law’s delays, the forms of judicial procedure, the adequacy of the sentence awarded to the perpetrators of the crime, and the compensation decreed to the victims or their families.

All this is reflected in the scores of letters from readers that can be read in newspapers, which published on December 22, 2009 a small report on the court verdict that sentenced Rathore to six months imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000 for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl at Panchkula in Haryana, 19 years ago. “At long last, justice, too little and too late, has seemingly been done to the girl, who was growing into a promising tennis player, when she chose to end her life,” a newspaper quoted a neighbour of the girl’s family as saying. (The sexual assault on the minor took place in 1990 and she committed suicide three years later, unable to bear the harassment and torture her father and brother had to suffer at the instance of the police official, abusing all the power at his command. All that the father and son did was to take the issue to court. The investigation and the proceedings in different courts prolonged the agony of the family for nearly two decades.)

In the weeks following the news report on the verdict thousands of articles, analyses, and pictures in print and online were generated by it. TV channels have vied with one another to take the message to even larger sections of people across the country.

The indifference and failure of Haryana Chief Ministers to get the culprit punished within a reasonable period have been widely deplored. S. Viswanathan”

“Comment from Neha, Amritsar: India is a unique country in many respects, its just ice system being one of them. One wonders the wisdom of our criminal laws that let many Rathores go scot free while numerous innocent people are languishing in jails for the want of a fair trial. So many people have not yet been formally convicted in spite of spending considerable period in confinement disproportionate to what their offence may have warranted. The Rathore case amply demonstrates the importance of freeing judiciary from money and muscle power.”

The Indian police system is known to be one of the least accountable in any democratic nation, and it is hardly surprising considering the following facts:-

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Swami Nithyananda scandal – jail, no bail

Swami Nityananda, trying to cover up the sex video evidence, contradicting himself time and again

Having fled the arm of the law to the Himalayas, Nithyananda has been caught and removed into custody in Bangalore, awaiting trial (along with several of his associates). He is charged under section 295 (a) – deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief. See here. Important documents have and large sums of money have reportedly been seized.

Swami Nithyananda’s break of trust with his estimated 2 million ‘followers’ is very serious. He is another bogus ‘godman’ among the many in India, and that he has been jailed without bail is itself a positive step in that it shows that Indian civil society is not entirely without power to punish false gurus and protect the gullible from investing their energies and money is him and all the otherworldly promises on which he can never deliver.  Many Indians have spoken out against gurus to an unprecedented extent as a result of the Nithyananda scandal.

However, at the same time it, Nithyananda’s influence – though the numbers claimed are doubtless vastly inflated – are as nothing besides the megalomaniac claims of Sathya Sai Baba. If anyone deserved to come under legal scrutiny it is  Sathya Sai Baba, whose involvement in cold-blooded murder of four devotees was covered-up by the Indian Government (CBI investigation quashed totally through former Indian Home Minister S.B. Chavan and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao). Then there is the infamy of Sathya Sai Baba’s known sexual molestation (i.e. genital oiling of young men in private on their private parts, accepted as ‘spiritual healing’ by many of his officials) and further the mass of worldwide allegations of his outright perverse sexual abuses that often follow on genital ‘anointing’. (See interview on this to the BBC Khushwant Singh: genital oiling, lingams, followers etc.)

Such comments are the following brief sample occur on diverse Indian discussion boards, blogs etc:

At http://www.forestlaneshul.com/ – Jeysin wrote
Hi everybody,
I just wondering whether the people who is going behind Saibaba have stopped going to his places after the Nidyanantha scandal! But unfortunately, NO!
It happenned after Premananda Swami, it’s happenning after Nidyanantha swami, and will go on………. like this until every individual get experienced themself. If they allow cameras inside the Saibaba’s places then you can have plenty of videos like this one.
GOD has no intention to come through or on a human to give his messages. If GOD is there then he is everywhere, you can just talk to him, pray him, admire him, thank him and ask him. GOD is not going to give you pleasure because you paid donation to Nidyanantha.
People, please THINK AGAIN!

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Inside information on Sathya Sai Baba by very close servitor

For those who have not had the advantage of knowing people who are extremely well-informed about the daily doings of Sathya Sai Baba, I have make public facts about my many private interchanges with my former excellent friend, V. K. Narasimhan (or ‘VKN’ – renowned Indian journalist of The Hindu & Indian Express – and editor – latterly of Sanathana Sarathi, where he published dozens of my articles). Narasimhan was very important to the respectability of Sathya Sai Baba in  leading Indian circles, but he harboured many and persistent doubts about which he seldom spoke because of the serious consequences it would have for the social projects of Sai Baba and VKNs own security at the ashram where he lived and was looked after in his dotage.

These articles tells about the legacy of inside information that was left with me by V. K. Narasimhan. Included were facts he had not dared to make known to more than a very few persons.  I swear on my personal honour that all I relate here is nothing but the truth to the very best of understanding after very long and painstaking follow-up investigations.

Narasimhan often repeated that he really didn’t understand why Sathya Sai Baba was so nice to him… describing himself as a rather non-religious and ‘hard-nut’ journalist. He often told me he did not know why he had ended up at SB’s ashram, except that Sai Baba was heading some valuable social projects which hardly any others in India were doing. Most significantly, as editor of SB’s journal, he NEVER published any accounts of ‘materializations’ or healing miracles by Sai Baba!  However, Sai Baba found VKN a very valuable asset to his credibility due to VKN’s journalistic prestige, his known social ideals and  honesty. His presence there bolstered Sai Baba’s image in the eyes of the more enlightened middle classes of India. Above all, he knew personally most of the top politicians and other elite in India and induced many of them to visit Sai Baba who otherwise might never have gone there. Moreover, a journalist who had seen so much failure, incompetence and corruption in his journalistic travels, VKN had admiration for SB’s public works and believed in Sai Baba’s promise to raise India and protect or regenerate all that was good about its culture, religion and people. (This project can be seen to have failed very signally already).

That Narasimhan was entirely non-negative in his presentation of Sai Baba and his public doings in his own public talks and writings was often against his better knowledge, for he was ever telling me about SB’s failings and untruthfulness. See scans of my long series of verbatim notes of his  conversations with me at the time between 1989 and 1998 before his decease. No doubt, VKN mostly felt great respect for SB, and – like most others – was strongly affected by his charismatically invigorating (and intimidating) presence. VKN was soon tamed by Sai Baba into misrepresenting and/or editing out certain vital facts he knew and was unable to rock the boat, though he confided his many doubts and difficulties to some of us in private. No doubt to mollify VKN’s misgivings, Sai Baba called him for something or other practically every day and he spent many long hours close by SB at festivals, in occasional interviews, and rode about with him in cars etc.

Click here to see the following scans of my notebook records of revealing conversations with V. K. Narsimhan
Robert Priddy’s long friendship with V.K. Narasimhan – scanned letters
Robert Priddy recorded notes and diary 1984-98 – scans and comments
V.K. Narasimhan and Robert Priddy’s close association
V.K. Narasimhan’s comments on the murders reported
V.K. Narasimhan’s inability to get Sai Baba to tell him the truth
V.K. Narasimhan’s doubts of Sai Baba’s powers, avatar claims etc.
V.K. Narasimhan’s comments on the Sathya Sai Organization
V.K.N. recorded about pointing out to Sai Baba his inconsistent teaching
V.K.N. contradicts Sai on Advaita – and on ashram security etc.
V.K.N. on 70th birthday crowd size and more
New Year 1996 – disillusioning reflections and VKN
V.K.N. on printing problems, a suicide, and Sai’s boyhood visits to famous ‘saints’
V.K.N. lost an eye despite Sai Baba’s vibuti application etc.
V.K. Narasimhan on Robert Priddy’s book ‘Source of the Dream’
V.K. Narasimhan on Sai colleges, the ‘sect’ and Sai’s ignorance
V.K.N. on Sai Organization (1994 Brindavan) + Al Drucker’s banishment
V.K.N. on Suri etc. About sewage scam at Prashanthi and Alvin Drucker’s return
V.K.N. at Brindavan – his experiences. Meeting with Mr. V. Balu
V.K.N., Brindavan 1990 – Sandweiss, his apartment

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Belief in black magic and witches in India

Belief in such primitive superstitions as “black magic” is promoted and encouraged by Sathya Sai Baba (see here documentation from his books authorised by him and sold in his bookshop) .

One related belief system is a cause of major social problems and murders. “The Great Indian Witch Hunt“, is an award-winning documentary film hosted by noted playwright, writer and actress Sohaila Kapur (sister of director Shekhar Kapur) and directed by Filmmaker Rakhi Varma. It was part of the 12 episode series “It happens only in India” launched by The National Geographic channel – each episode focusing on an aspect of “real India” until now unexplored in detail.
“The great Indian witch hunt” looks into likely causes of accusations against single and widowed women for being witches. It describes the ostracism they suffer from society. and not seldom with awful consequences. Set in Jharkhand, the film portrays a woman, Mania Mardi, who was killed by her nephew Gurudeo. He believed she was a witch who had caused the death of his father and brother.

In the early part of the narrative, Varma interviews so-called Supposed ‘witches’ who have been tortured by villagers and even forced to eat human excreta are interviewed by director Varma. She focuses on Baba Ramashankar, who claims to possess supernatural powers that can cause the death and destruction of anyone he might choose to unleash his wrath on.

For the murder trial, Sohaila Kapoor carries out an on-camera inquiry questioning Gurudeo’s real motives and arrives at the conclusion that he had wrongly assumed that his relatives had died as a result of a spell. Medical records prove that they had contracted tuberculosis.

Witchcraft is still widely believed in and ‘practiced’ in many backward parts of India, involving killings, 500 cases reported in Jharkand alone in the 1990 and this continues. Until the 17th to 18th century, up to. 40,000 women were  burned at the stake or killed in Europe.

Read a summary of the film here
Police are lax in acting to protect persons wrongly persecuted for witchcraft. This is shown by the petition (by a person wrongly accused of witchcraft) in the High Court at Mumbai -see also on above link.

Ignorance and religious mind control

The following passage is a most interesting and actual comparison…

From Richard Dawkin's new book's first page

… with acknowledgements to one of the most brilliant, knowledgeable evolutionary scientists and a civil and courageous person – defender of the rights of children not to be indoctrinated religiously. Of course, it is Richard Dawkins, whose new book everyone – especially anyone who believes in creationism – ought to read to get some very convincing real knowledge and rise above the ignorance of mere belief.
SEE THE VIDEO INTRODUCTION ‘THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH: The Evidence for Evolution’ The highly-anticipated new book from the bestselling author of The God Delusion!

Professor Dawkins’ description of the ignorant prejudice against which one must fight a rearguard action applied with considerable force to the task of dissident and ex-followers of Sathya Sai Baba. They point out the falsity of many of his self-proclaimed ‘Divine Teachings’ in his public discourses, but also  his fraudulent materializations (filmed plenty of times) and gifts of cheap trinkets he pretends to ‘materialize’ (‘miracles’) and which he often falsely says contain genuine diamonds. Then there is his undoubted involvement in the cover-up of murders in his bedroom in 1993, which he publicly claimed to have known about beforehand!

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Sai Baba: Glaring Publicity yet Silence on Critical Issues

Sathya Sai Baba imposes silence about himself as far as possible

In earlier years, many Sai Baba devotees strictly followed his advice not to engage in publicity for him. He claimed his success was ensured without the need for any publicity whatever, and he banned all such. All that has now changed! Meanwhile, he continued to blare out in discourses (relayed in print, film and other media) pronouncements of his own marvellous deeds as exceeding anything ever done by anyone on earth. Eventually, his leaders took his own lead and began lavish publicity events around the world. When the scandals broke onto the Internet in 2000, he pronounced in 2000 that no followers should use the Internet. Sai Baba’s thus made a divine faux pas, (though he always claims omniscience and omnipotence) because a very large number of insubordinate devotees soon ignored this edict, as well as his early complaints that computers would ruin human intellect etc. ) He has since accepted and financed websites and radio stations on a large scale as a necessary supplement to his propaganda machine.

Sai devotee websites and bulletin boards are even more censorious and unquestioning than the Sai discussion groups, and no genuine thinking or the mildest hint of criticism is ever voiced. This further testifies to the fear of public scrutiny. Only after six years of silence did the official Sai apparatus – falsely imagining that they had won in a US court case – take the chance of dealing with the allegations in an article posted on the official Radio Sai website by the second-in-command of the Prashanthi Council,  Dr. G. Venkataraman, the mendacious propagandist. He has since been answered very thoroughly and fully rebutted with complete documentation. See also the true statement of the facts about the lawsuit of Alaya Rahm by the International Just Group, the Rahm family and their lawyer, which clearly shows that Dr. G. Venkataraman has made a concerted bid – in his posting on the official Prashanthi Nilayam website – to deceive the public as to what occurred. He claims that no students to whom he has talked have any knowledge of sexual abuses by Sai Baba, which is exactly what one would expect considering that fully-signed up blind believer Venkataraman would tell Sai Baba who alleged what… That could have drastic consequences for any student who spoke out, and even a virtual death sentence (murders of students have been widely documented). Students at Sai Baba’s colleges have contacted me and told me just that… and none are unaware of the dangers involved in speaking to Venkataraman or identifying themselves in public in any way (unless they are securely and permanently outside India).

Any candid study of Sathya Sai Baba and his environment would need to look at the serious alleged crimes and not least at the almost endless string of wholly absurd and false claims made by this Baba about himself.

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Moreno’s deception re David Bailey Phone Conversation

In another of his countless pro-Sai web pages, among those contrived to mislead [as nearly all of them against me are], the pro-Sai extremist Joe Moreno claims that ‘anti-Sai activists’ withheld the transcript of the second part of a phone conversation which David Bailey had with Thomas Wiehe of Sweden. This is entirely untrue. Both parts of the phone conversation were transcribed from the start (see here and here), and both were on-line too here and here). It seems Joe is unable to search the Internet with the ‘efficiency’ he often crows about. This is what he concocted:-

screenshot from Moreno's saisathyasai.com under "bailey-phone-conversation.html"

Obviously the phone call was recorded by Thomas Wiehe, who made the call…  who else? So no further identification was necessary. The call was made either in 1999 or 2000, but the date is immaterial.The really absurd assertion Joe makes is that it is undeniable that David Bailey prepared what he would say on the fallacious ground that the phone started ringing in his office/home. Anyone can figure that  the recording was evidently switched on by Thomas before David’s wife answered. The ring tone is what is heard when phoning to UK before the receiver is lifted. QED. But so what if David had prepared what to say. However, he is a very accomplished presenter of what he has to say, and with no eeers or ums. That he did not tell of what his students had told him for 18 months is not in the least remarkable. Such matters are extremely sensitive, and – in this case – four students were murdered in cold blood in Sai Baba’s bedroom in 1993, so Bailey had to taker all precautions to protect them. This is also one weighty reason why no student has dared to raise a court case against Sai Baba in India (which is the only nation where such a case could be taken up and also where he has the highest protection the government and judiciary can provide).

Joe talks about no ‘scintilla’ of evidence. That is because he systematically and a priori doubts each and every testimony and every fact he does not like and then he sets out to try in massive web attacks to destroy the reputation of every dissenter who speaks out about Sathya Sai Baba. However, in one thing Joe is right, the phone conversation gives massive insights into the reason for David Bailey’s disaffection – a favourite of Sai Baba who was asked to over 100 interviews

Moreno’s gross dishonesty in not admitting or removing untruths that he has posted, or apologising:
Unlike Joe Moreno, I correct mistakes I have made when they come to my attention. Though I hardly ever look into any of his depredations – they are so fanatically trite and revealingly antipathetic – I now see that he has made a big fuss over a relatively innocuous mistake I made, my having stated somewhere that David Bailey has a music website. However, I was too hasty – it was not his website, it is another David Bailey (mea culpa). Despite that I know that David is alive and well and has moved from UK to the Continent (his location is not made public because of the masses of hate mails and webs libels he suffered when he dared to speak out about what he discovered about Sarthy Sai Baba’s massive deception, having met many of those who tell of being sexually abused by Sai Baba.
See also: http://www.saibaba-x.org.uk/9/David_Bailey_phone_testimony.html

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Please go to the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization