Around 2,000 death threats, anonymous phone calls and furious mobs – Ajay Pal Lamba, senior police officer overseeing the investigation in the rape case against self-styled godman Asaram Bapu, has faced it all.
A Jodhpur court on Wednesday, 25 April convicted Asaram of raping a minor in 2013 and sentenced him to life imprisonment. But the journey from his arrest to conviction hasn’t been easy, especially for the police.
Lamba, who was the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) of Jodhpur when the case came to light in 2013, told Hindustan Times (HT) that he faced at least 2,000 death threats over the years.
While narrating his experiences while investigating the case, he said his men had to face a mob of at least 8,000 of Asaram’s followers.
The letters carried abuses and threatened that they would kill my family if anything happened to Asaram. My phone would not stop ringing and I stopped receiving calls from unknown numbers. The letters stopped only when I shifted to Udaipur.Ajay Pal Lamba, as quoted by HT
Lamba also said that he had to stop sending his daughter to school for a while and that his wife would not step out of the house.
Pal said that avoiding a law and order situation was one of the biggest challenges over the course of the investigation till Asaram’s arrest.
“When my 11-member team went to deliver a summon notice to the Asaram at his ashram in Madhya Pradesh, they faced a mob of about 8,000 people. My team was shoved and it took them 10 hours just to be able to deliver that piece of paper,” Pal told HT.
He requested that he be taken by flight and the police agreed. During the night, he was talking to his kids in Sindhi and asked them to amass 25,000 of his supporters by morning. ‘I’ll see how they’ll take me then’, he said on the phone. One of my men understood Sindhi and his plan was foiled.Ajay Pal Lamba, as quoted by HT
Asaram was brought to Jodhpur and put in a government guest house.
“When I entered the room, he was sitting on a sofa. I told him to get off and sit on the floor. That very moment, he confessed that he made a mistake,” Lamba told HT.
Lamba is now the superintendent of police (anti-corruption bureau) in Jodhpur.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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