Witness Killings & Attacks: The Campaign of Terror.

The legal proceedings against Asaram Bapu were marked by an extraordinary and unprecedented campaign of witness intimidation and violence. Between 2013 and 2018, three key prosecution witnesses were murdered, at least five others were severely attacked, and one went missing under suspicious circumstances. This campaign of terror drew international attention, with organizations like Human Rights Watch citing the Asaram case as a prime example of the urgent need for a comprehensive, national witness protection framework in India.

The first fatal attack occurred on 23 May 2014, when Amrut Prajapati, Asaram's former Ayurvedic doctor of 12 years and a key witness in the Surat rape case, was shot dead outside his clinic in Rajkot, Gujarat. Prajapati had turned against Asaram following the mysterious deaths of two boys at the Motera Gurukul in 2008 and had already deposed before the court. He succumbed to his injuries in June 2014, establishing a grim precedent of the risks faced by prosecution witnesses.

In January 2015, Akhil Gupta, Asaram's former cook and personal aide, was shot dead by motorcycle-borne assailants in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Gupta was a key witness in the Surat rape trial and had provided detailed testimony regarding Asaram's activities at the ashram. Following his murder, Gupta's family expressed deep dissatisfaction with the security provided by local police and sought protection from the Gujarat Police.

The violence escalated further in February 2015 when Rahul K. Sachan, a former personal physician and assistant to Asaram, was stabbed inside the Jodhpur Sessions Court premises by an Asaram supporter. Sachan survived the stabbing and subsequently filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India in August 2015, stating that he lived in constant fear of death by Asaram's "firing squad." In November 2015, Sachan mysteriously disappeared from his Lucknow residence; his fate remains unknown to this day, and the CBI later registered an abduction case.

The third witness to be killed was Kripal Singh, who was shot by unidentified gunmen in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, on 12 July 2015. Singh died the following day. In his dying declaration, Singh alleged that three followers of Asaram had approached him in the Jodhpur court premises, offering him large sums of money to change his testimony and threatening to kill him if he refused. His death prompted widespread condemnation and calls for immediate judicial intervention.

In March 2016, police arrested Kartik Haldar, a devout follower of Asaram, in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Haldar was identified as the suspected contract killer responsible for the murders of Amrut Prajapati, Akhil Gupta, and Kripal Singh, as well as several other non-fatal attacks. Investigators revealed that Haldar was part of a coordinated, well-funded network operating inside Asaram's follower base, which aimed to systematically eliminate witnesses and derail the trials.

Other notable incidents in this campaign of intimidation included an acid attack on Dinesh Bhavchandni in Surat in March 2014, who was providing legal assistance to people speaking out against the ashram, and a shooting incident targeting an ashram secretary who had deposed before the Trivedi Commission. Additionally, several witnesses turned hostile during the trials due to intense pressure and fear for their lives.

This case file serves as a solemn record of the individuals who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives to testify in the interest of justice. It documents the systematic nature of the intimidation, the findings of the Kartik Haldar investigation, and the broader implications for the rule of law and witness safety in high-profile criminal trials in India.