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A 32-year-old woman, who was confined in the Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya in Delhi’s Rohini area, told The Indian Express on Wednesday that a “baba” at the institution had raped her on several occasions.
The police on Wednesday carried out a raid at an ashram in Rohini following the Delhi High Court's order to inspect the institute where girls and women were allegedly kept in illegal confinement, reported PTI.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the CBI to investigate the alleged illegal confinement of girls and women in the ashram where they were kept in "animal-like" conditions behind metal doors in a "fortress" surrounded by barbed wire.
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The court had on Tuesday dubbed the situation in the institute -- Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya -- in north Delhi as being "similar" to that witnessed in Gurmeet Ram Rahim's ashram in Haryana's Sirsa, but without making any direct reference.
“They used to tell us that if we interacted with the outside world, we would be committing a sin. They kept telling us we would not survive…“The baba had told me that I was one of his 16,000 ranis...He raped me on several occasions,” the woman told the newspaper.
An NGO has alleged that girls and women were kept at the "university" for 14 years and more.
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While producing one girl in the court, who, the NGO claimed, had managed to get out of the premises, it alleged that she was raped during her stay there, which she has not even disclosed to her parents.
The NGO also alleged that girls confined at the ashram have committed suicide in the past, but the police never registered a case.
Delhi Commission for Women’s chief Swati Maliwal, who had accompanied the police to inspect the place, said tweeted saying barbed wire fenced the terraces of the heavily-fortified building, and not even a bird could enter or leave the place.
“Can't understand how is this ashram in Rohini called 'Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya'? Have they been recognised by UGC to call themselves a University? They don't have any documentation of who stays here, where they came from, what they do and they call themselves a University?,” Maliwal tweeted.
“We also learnt that the residents of the locality had complained many times to police, and the police station had daily diary entries to prove the concern of the people that a sex racket was being run in the garb of an ashram there,” she added.
The raid, which went until late night, saw the presence of deputy commissioner of police (Rohini) Rajneesh Gupta, Delhi Commission For Women chief Swati Maliwal and a group of lawyers.
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Maliwal claimed that when they reached the ashram, it took more than two hours to meet the girls and most of them were minor.
"We were also attacked in the ashram and held hostage for one hour," said Maliwal.
She said that in the institute, letters about alleged sexual assault faced by the inmates, were found from a box and also certain injections and medicines were also found in huge quantities.
(With PTI inputs)
