Delhi Police have booked a self-proclaimed seer, Swami Chaitanyananda Saraswati, after 17 students of a management institute accused him of sexual harassment at an ashram in the capital’s upscale Vasant Kunj.
The police said the accused was on the run and multiple teams had been formed to arrest him. A probe has revealed that the accused was a member of the management committee at the Sri Sharada Institute of Indian Management in southwest Delhi.
“A total of 17 students of the institute have accused him of sexual harassment. We have found in the institute’s basement a Volvo car with a forged diplomatic number plate that was used by Saraswati,” said a police officer.
“A case has been registered under Sections 75(2) (sexual harassment), 79 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Vasant Kunj North police station,” he said.
Hailing from Odisha, Saraswati had been living in an ashram in Delhi for the last 12 years, where he served as a caretaker and an operator. During the investigation, the police recorded statements of 32 postgraduate diploma students under the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) scholarship at the institute. “Of these, 17 students alleged that the accused used abusive language, sent obscene messages and made unwanted physical advances,” the officer said.
The police said three women faculty members and administrators at the institute allegedly abetted the accused by pressuring students to comply with his demands. Sources said a case of fraud and molestation had been lodged against Saraswati at the Defence Colony police station in 2009, while a molestation case was filed at Vasant Kunj in 2016.