Court order on Asaram aide bail plea likely today

Asaram Bapu

A sessions court is likely to pronounce order on an anticipatory bail application moved by one K D Patel, a follower of Asaram, whose name figures in the attack on witnesses. He has been named by at least two of the accused, including recently arrested alleged shooter Kartik Haldar for killing three witnesses and assaulting four such witnesses who testified against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai.

Patel had filed the anticipatory bail plea through his lawyer Chandrashekar Gupta before a sessions court in Ahmedabad on March 25. According to Gupta, “Patel has no link with the attacks and his name is wrongly implicated”. Patel is facing arrest in the alleged attack on one of the former inmates of Asaram’s Motera Ashram Raju Chandak in 2009 in Chandkheda, Sabarmati. Chandak had lodged an FIR claiming that the attack on him was done at the “behest of Asaram” for speaking against the “godman” before the justice D K Trivedi Commission appointed to probe the case of two children — Dipesh and Abhishek — from Motera Ashram. During interrogation, Haldar allegedly told DCB that he was helped by Patel and another accused Arjun Sindhi for attacking Chandak. Seeking anticipatory bail, Patel has claimed that he has nothing to do with the assault and he had filed a complaint against Chandak for “blackmailing Asaram through a sting.”