New Delhi, Oct 03: Little did 12-year-old Bhopu know what was in store for him when he was "lured" to become a ‘bal muni’ (child saint) by the Jain Ashram in Gujarat and his desperate letters to his father to rescue him from the ‘hell’ made him approach the Supreme Court with a habeas corpus petition. As he hailed from Indore, his father approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court requesting for rescuing the child, who had written two emotive letters to the father narrating his alleged sexual abuse at the hands of elder saints. An Apex Court bench, comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice Brijesh Kumar, has issued notices to the Jambudweep Ashram at Palithana in Bhavnagar and the saints and persons named in the petition as respondents. Three years back, the father received a letter from the ashram through his younger brother, who was working as a help in the ashram, asking him to send his son to Palithana for his ‘samman’ ceremony slated for November 16, 2000. To make it look as if the father had consented for his son to be taken for the ceremony, the respondents colluded to produce receipts made in his name to show that he had paid for the preliminary rituals, the petitioner alleged.
The samman ceremony was organised on November 16 and the petitioner said, being an uneducated Hindu, he could not make out what the rituals meant when his son and another boy from Delhi were ‘honoured’.
Bureau Report