File photo of Asaram Bapu
A portion of an ashram of self-styled god-man Asaram Bapu was torched by some unidentified people in Pardi village of Valsad district in south Gujarat on Monday.
Police said that some unidentified persons vandalised the one-room ashram, known as Shanti Kutir, and put it on fire yesterday morning. No casualties were reported.
Police suspect it to be a case of dispute over land. They said that two locals had donated the land for the ashram some years back, but had now been pleading to the ashram authorities to return it.
With the ashram authorities refusing to do so, resentment against Asaram and his followers had been brewing in the area for a while, police said.
The controversial preacher, currently in Gujarat on transfer remand, is serving jail in Jodhpur for raping a 15-year-old school girl.
His custody in Ahmedabad for investigation into a second case of allegedly sexually assaulting a woman from Surat ends today.
While the woman has accused Asaram of repeated assaults between 1997 and 2006, her younger sister has levelled similar allegations against his son, Narayan Sai, who continues to evade the police.