A four-and-a-half year old boy was found dead in a bathroom at a gurukul run by the religious figure Asaram Bapu on Parasiya road in Chhindwara late on Tuesday.The incident follows the recent mysterious deaths of two young children at a gurukul run on the banks of the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, which saw clashes between the preacher’s supporters and those accusing the ashram of engaging in esoteric practices. The ashram maintains that the deaths were due to drowning.So when Ramkrishna Mohan Yadav was declared dead at a local hospital in Chhindwara the administration was worried that the town could see similar clashes.The Chhindwara police said prima facie it appeared to be a case of accidental death. TI (Kotwali) Vinod Srivastava told The Indian Express on Wednesday that there were no external injuries on the body. The boy could have slipped and died, a version even the gurukul authorities offered.The victim and his two siblings were admitted to the gurukul on July 2. Their Mumbai-based father, who is an advocate, rushed to Chhindwara along with his wife.Srivastava said the parents did not raise any suspicion and agreed with the gurukul’s version of the event that two boys found Ramkrishna lying in the bathroom in the evening. When he was taken to a local nursing home he was declared dead on arrival.But the authorities are not taking any chances. A panel of doctors was roped in to carry out the post-mortem, which was delayed because the parents reached late. The entire post-mortem will be videographed. Srivastava said the preliminary post-mortem report would be out late on Wednesday.
