Kripal Singh is the third witness to die in the Asaram Bapu sexual assault case
On July 10, insurance agent Kripal Singh was shot in the back, not far from his home in Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur. A day later, he died of spinal injuries, becoming the latest victim in the Asaram Bapu rape case. Before dying, he named his attackers.
Kripal Singh is the third witness to die in the sexual assault case against self-styled godman Asaram Bapu; nine have been attacked. He had a six-year-old son and a pregnant wife. A week on, no arrests have been made and no witnesses have come forward.
Kripal Singh was a friend of the father of the teenager who has accused Asaram of raping her in his ashram on August 15, 2013. His family says he never asked for security, but now they want a license to keep a gun for their own protection.
"We had no idea that he was a witness in the Asaram case. He never discussed it. Last Friday he went for work as usual, but in the evening we heard that he has been shot at a kilometre away from our house," Kripal's wife Moni Singh told NDTV.
Some policemen have now been posted at the house, but the family fears that is not enough protection.
"We want the government to give a gun license to his wife or any of us so that we can protect her and the little children. How long will the police stay here?" said Kripal's brother-in-law Shivpal.
The police believe that one of Kripal's attackers, Raghav, was hiding in Asaram's ashram in Lucknow but escaped when he realized that the police were on his trail.
The 74-year-old guru has been in a Jodhpur jail since August 2013, over allegations of raping the teenager, then 16. Two months later he, along with his son Narayan Sai, were booked for the alleged rape of two sisters at their ashram in Gujarat's Surat.
In January this year, Akhil Gupta, the cook and aide of Asaram, was killed on his way home from work in Uttar Pradesh. Last year, Asaram's physician Amrut Prajapati was shot dead in Gujarat. Six others have survived attacks on them.