CBI will probe confinement of women, girls

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed the CBI to investigate the alleged illegal confinement of girls and women in a North Delhi ashram where they were kept in animal-like” conditions behind metal doors in a “fortress” surrounded by barbed wire.

Taking note of the “seriousness and the sensitivity of the matter”, a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar asked the CBI director to forthwith constitute a special investigation team (SIT) which will take charge of all the records and documents pertaining to the case.

The court asked the CBI to investigate the FIRs lodged in Delhi against the Rohini-based ashram and its founder-cum- spiritual head Virender Dev Dixit and the daily diary entries relating to complaints of missing girls, commission of sexual offences and even a case of suicide there.

With regard to the cases lodged in Uttar Pradesh against the institute and its founder, the agency has to place a status report in the court before the next date of hearing on January 17, it said.

“The CBI shall proceed expeditiously in the matter and ensure that steps in accordance with the law be taken at the earliest,” the court said during a four-hour-long hearing. Directions were also issued to the institute and its founder to produce by Thursday the full details and particulars of every inmate lodged in the two buildings housing male and female staff and followers.

They were also asked to inform the court tomorrow about the whereabouts of one of the girls, at present missing from the institute, and when she would be produced before the bench.

The court had on Tuesday dubbed the situation in the institute — Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya — located at Rohini in north Delhi as being “similar” to that witnessed in Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s ashram.