Mahamandaleshwar Niranjani Akhada and Spiritual Guru Vairagyanand Giri Maharaj, a self-styled seer popularly known as Mirchi Baba, was arrested on Tuesday from Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior on rape charges.
According to the reports, Mirchi Baba was arrested from a hotel in the city in a joint action by the Bhopal Police and Gwalior Crime Branch, and handed over to the Bhopal Police, said Amit Sanghi, the Gwalior superintendent of police.
Mirchi Baba was arrested after a middle-aged woman from Raisen filed a complaint to the Mahila Police station accusing him of raping her on the pretext of conceiving a child.
Reportedly, the woman had approached the seer with the grievance that despite four years of marriage, she was still bereft of a child. In July this year, she visited the Baba to seek his blessings to have a child. When she confided about her grief to the seer, he asked her to come to him to offer havan and prayers for begetting a child. Under the pretext of prayers for conceiving a child, he reportedly drugged her and raped her, the complaint said.
The police have registered the case under section 376 of IPC.
It is worth noting that Vairagyanand Giri alias Mirchi Baba came into the limelight during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when he performed a havan of five quintals of red chillies for the victory of Congress candidate Digvijaya Singh. Mirchi Baba had then vowed to take samadhi if Digvijaya Singh loses the elections. However, BJP candidate Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur emerged victorious in the polls. When people reminded him of his vow to take samadhi, he quietly retired from public life.
