Ahmedabad, Feb. 16: The chief priest of the Vadtal Swaminarayan temple today said the four sadhus involved in the CD sex scandal will be expelled from the sect.

?All the sadhus whose images appear in the CD will be dismissed along with the priest of the Junagadh Swaminarayan temple, Bhakti Swaroop,? Narottam Swami said.

The sadhus were caught on camera engaging in sex acts with women, all from Ahmedabad.

A resolution seeking Bhakti Swaroop?s expulsion was unanimously adopted by the trustees of the Junagadh Swaminarayan temple and sent to Vadtal, the headquarters of the sect, said Dheerubhai Gohil, a temple trustee.

Bhakti Swaroop and three touts who were arrested yesterday by the Ahmedabad crime branch were produced before a local court, which remanded the four in police custody till February 22. The police had sought 14 days? remand to investigate all dimensions of the scandal, especially who financed the touts. ?All the characters involved in the sex scandal will be arrested very soon and everything will come out,? said additional police commissioner (crime branch) D.G. Vanzara.

Police sources said investigations are on in Surat, Bharuch and Saurashtra to find out the ?connection? of other people to the scandal.

The police believe that more sadhus of the Vadtal sect ? there are several among Swaminarayan devotees ? could get sucked into the scandal. The Vadtal sect is unconnected to the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar that had become the target of a terrorist attack.

Narottam Swami said the scandal has done irreparable damage to the sect but added that devotees were aware of the ?motive? of the people who had conspired to show them in a poor light. He hoped the police would unravel who financed the operation and provided cameras to videograph the sadhus and who stood to gain by maligning the sect.

?Our rivals have hatched a conspiracy against us. They are doing everything to defame us, laying traps, sending women,? Narottam Swami had said yesterday.

The head priest blamed deposed acharya Ajendra Prasad for ?playing dirty games to recapture the seat of power at Vadtal, one of the most influential sects with a large NRI following?.

As acharya, Ajendra Prasad had decided against recruiting new sadhus in the 1990s as he believed that sadhus were ?immoral and corrupt?. This had angered the sadhus who ganged up to remove Ajendra Prasad, a direct descendant of Swaminarayan, who founded the sect about 200 years ago.

They succeeded after a long struggle by extending support to Ajendra Prasad?s cousin Rakesh Prasad, who ?forcibly? removed Ajendra Prasad and declared himself the acharya.