Sexual exploitation: ‘Godman’ told woman that she was sent to earth just for him

The teenage daughter of a serving police officer, who was sexually exploited by a self-proclaimed godman for the past three years, was introduced to the accused by her own father

Mumbai The teenage daughter of a serving police officer, who was sexually exploited by a self-proclaimed godman for the past three years, was introduced to the accused by her own father.

The police officers suspect that Awasthi, who was working as a manager with Tata Consultancy Services, has been sexually exploiting other women too and are trying to ascertain the suspicion (HT File)

The godman Sureshkumar Awasthi, who otherwise works as a manager with a well-known IT company, was introduced to the police officer, almost 12 years ago by a common friend. He was told that Awasthi had divine powers and could show him the path to heaven.

For the last decade, the survivor’s father became an ardent devotee of Awasthi and even skipped duty to attend his spiritual lectures at his house in Versova at Andheri West. “The officer’s wife had doubts about Awasthi. However, whenever she objected to him going to Awasthi, he used to pick up a fight with her, claiming that he was following his guru,” said Siraj Inamdar, senior inspector of Versova police station.

The police officer said that in the past 12 years, the father had given Awasthi gold worth ₹10 lakh belonging to his mother and wife. “I was completely hypnotised by Awasthi and could not gauge his intentions,” the father has said in his statement to the Versova police.

The police officers suspect that Awasthi, who was working as a manager with Tata Consultancy Services, has been sexually exploiting other women too and are trying to ascertain the suspicion. Police officials said his daughter works as a doctor with a reputed private hospital in the city.

According to the police, in October 2019, Awasthi had called the survivor to his house after talking to her father, to perform a small puja to fix their problems. The teenager, who was 17 years at the time, had taken her younger brother along but Awasthi sent the boy out to get something from the shop.

As he was alone at his house, he offered the woman some ‘prasaad’ to eat, which he had spiked and then raped her. After she gained consciousness and confronted Awasthi, he told her that she had been sent to earth by God to be with him and threatened her that if she talked about the assault to anyone, he would curse her entire family and each one of them would then die after suffering from crucial pain.

Later, he allegedly used her obscene picture as leverage and further blackmailed her into submission and repeatedly exploited her at his own residence. “During Ganpati, when Awasthi visited the police quarters where the survivor stayed with her parents, he drew the curtains of one of their rooms and switched off the lights and summoned the teenager to the room where he was present alone,” said Inamdar.

“It was then that the survivor’s mother objected to letting her daughter alone with the accused and pulled the survivor away. An angry Awasthi left the officer’s house and after reaching his home, called up the survivor’s mother and abused her,” he added.

“It was then that the survivor broke her silence and revealed everything to her parents. The woman told her parents that Awasthi used to call her to his house thrice a week and rape her,” said Inamdar.

The woman’s parents then approached the police and reported her exploitation.

Inamdar said that they are now trying to find out how many more followers did Awasthi have and whether he sexually exploited anyone else.