Ailing Asaram taken to Pune from Jodhpur jail for treatment

Jodhpur: Asaram Bapu, who is serving a life sentence in Jodhpur Central Jail for raping a minor, was on Tuesday sent to Pune for treatment, two weeks after the Rajasthan High Court allowed the self-styled godman to undergo treatment at an Ayurvedic hospital in Maharashtra.

Asaram, 83, who was arrested in September 2013, will undergo treatment for some heart-related ailment at Madhavbaug hospital in Pune for seven days, police said.

He departed for Mumbai on an Indigo flight at 2:20 pm and was accompanied by Jodhpur police officers and two attendants. Earlier, there were reports that he would be travelling by air ambulance.

SHO (Airport police station) Hanuman Singh said that keeping in view the departure of Asaram, adequate security arrangements were put in place at the airport.

"We ensured that no other person except passengers could enter the airport at the time of Asaram's arrival and boarding of flight. Only those persons, who were to board the same flight, were allowed to enter the airport," Singh said.

The high court on August 13 allowed Asaram to undergo treatment for seven days at an Ayurvedic hospital in Maharashtra under police custody.

While granting the parole to Asaram, the high court had laid certain conditions, which included that four policemen would be travelling with him. He was also allowed to have two attendants with him.

He will be kept in a private cottage in Pune and the entire expenditure of the treatment and travel to and from along with the expenses incurred in police arrangements will also have to be borne by him.

This is for the first time since his arrest on September 1, 2013, the court has granted any of his prayers.

Asaram's pleas for suspension of sentence on health grounds were earlier rejected by the high court and the Supreme Court.

He was arrested in Indore for allegedly raping a teenage girl in his ashram here in 2013 and was convicted by a special POCSO court in 2018.

A Gujarat court had, in January 2023, convicted him in a decade-old sexual assault case involving a woman disciple and sentenced him to life imprisonment.