By Veluppillai Thangavelu –

Veluppillai Thangavelu

Continued from Tuesday…                                                                                      

The Judges praised the efficient work done by the police in investigating the crime and the roles played by the AIDWA and the press, and Sessions Judge Bhanumathi.

In January 2000, the Madras High Court ordered that Rs. 36.4 lakhs from Premananda’s frozen accounts should be placed in a fixed deposit for three years and the resulting interest should be paid to the victims as compensation.

On 5th April 2005, the Supreme Court of India upheld the conviction by the District Court of Pudukkoddai and Madras High Court that   Premananda’s ‘double-life’ sentence for murder, rape and conspiracy will run consecutively without further appeal. The appeal was argued by the well known criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani a much sought after lawyer by murderers, rapists, swindlers and con-men.  According to Indian newspapers and tabloid magazines Premananda is the most despicable criminal in the history of Tamil Nadu state. Yet, on 20th November 2005, Premananda Ashram celebrated his 54th birthday while he lay guarded 300 km away on a hospital bed in Chennai.  Two days later, there was little to celebrate, it was the anniversary of Premananda’s 11th year in prison. 

The Madras High Court rejected a habeas corpus petition, keeping in view the recommendations of the District Sessions judge at the time of conviction and the previous Supreme Court order. On 26 June 2010, however, the same court accepted Premananda’s petition requesting a three-month parole to undergo medical treatment. 

The Indian Supreme Court Justices who heard the appeal branded Premananda a “devil” and a “monster”, even going beyond their powers to forbid any remission of his sentence or amnesty. The court also heard that in some cases the consent was obtained by deceit, such as promising a cure for ailments such as asthma or by saying that sex with the swami was “service to God”. The court also noted that some of the girls had been threatened with dire consequences and that some of the victims were below the age of consent (16 at the time of trial) when they were raped. 

One of many witnesses for defence was none other than former Supreme Court Judge Wigneswaran and currently the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council. After hearing his evidence the court dubbed him as a “wishful thinker”, but unfazed Wigneswaran continued to question not only the deplorable infringements of human rights, but the manifest injustices taking place in the Indian legal system. 

However, his international followers, including Wigneswaran, fight for justice and maintain that Swami Premananda is an incarnation of divinity, an Avatar on a par with the greatest saints and a supreme being of the highest purity and divine. It beats one’s imagination how a learned ex-judge of the Supreme Court still believes Premananda is innocent and  the case against him was false. Recently Wigneswaran has the temerity to compare Premananda with Jesus Christ claiming   both innocent but wrongly convicted.   

In an  interview,  Wigneswaran gave to a Tamil  website called Thinappuyal (Daily Storm) about his close relationship with Premananda who was convicted for rape of under aged girls and murder of a youth, Wigneswaran responding in Tamil claimed that Jesus Christ was also convicted 2,000 years ago but people are worshiping him now as God” he said in  Tamil.  

The You Tube posted on the web by Thinappuyal showed the interviewer asking Wigneswaran about his being a Premananda devotee and whether it was correct to be a devotee of a man convicted as a criminal and rapist by the courts. The ex-Supreme court judge responded to the question by saying Jesus Christ was convicted 2,000 years ago, but people were worshipping him now as God.  Mr. Wigneswaran re-iterated his point about Jesus Christ by saying again in Tamil “Avar oru Kuttravaali. Avarukku Marana Thandanai Theerkkappattathu. Aen Innum Cireesthavargal Avarai Iraivanaahap Paarkkiraargal”? (He was a criminal. He was convicted and given a death sentence. Why are Christians still seeing him as God”?  The manifestly absurd comparison between Jesus Christ and Premananda by Wigneswaran drew angry criticism from Christians both lay and priests, but it quickly died down. 

In November, 2015 Wigneswaran went to Thiruchi  to deliver the K.G. Kannabiran Memorial Lecture. He was an eminent civil rights activist and prominent lawyer. Wigneswaran took the opportunity to  part in prayers at Premananda Ashram  in Fatima Nagar in Thiruchi. He stayed in a cottage at the Ashram and offered early morning prayers at Siva temple in the Ashram premises. According to Ashram authorities, Wigneswaran visits the Ashram every year and is a staunch devotee of Premananda. Strangely no one raised the question why the Chief Minister who is a public official visited a place where orphan girls as young as 13 years old were serially raped by a devil and a monster. The deafening silence of Tamil women and the media were frightening. In his lecture  he complained that there is systematic and continual rape and torture of Tamil men and women by the Armed Forces as recent reports show. This is while he himself worships a serial rapist and murderer Premananda a clear  case of double speak and double standards.   

Chief Minister’s adoration for rapist and murderer Premananda is scandalous and repugnant to say the least. He has built a temple at Puliyankulam ostensibly for Poobala Krishna but in reality for Premananda. His  statue has been installed right inside temple along with other Hindu gods. A Hindu Brahmin priest performs poojas three times a day. Wigneswaran also celebrates purinima day in Colombo for his guru Premananda every year.  

On March 14, 2015 Chief Minister told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he was forwarding documents sent by one K.Sivathy, daughter of R. Kamalananda, convict No: 4220 “Since the girl’s father and mother hail from our (Northern) province, I take the liberty of forwarding the said documents for your kind consideration. Mr. Ram Jethmalani who is known to me, is fully aware of the false case filed,” Wigneswaran said. The documents, addressed to Modi, were signed by immediate family members S. Balendra; S. Sathishkumar and S. Nandakumar. The convicts’ relations claimed that a “travesty of justice” had taken place. And with the Indian Supreme Court confirming the sentence, release had  become  “impossible”. Pleading for Modi’s good offices to get them released, they said: “Our dear ones have been in prison for more than 20 years now. The best years of their lives are gone and our lives have also been affected very much. It might be noted Sir, that they are not convicted for any positive act of crime but for abetment only.”  

When questioned by Northern Provincial  Council Members, Wigneswaran wriggled out of the situation by saying it was not a letter, but merely an endorsement to a letter addressed to Prime Minister Modi by the relatives of the convicts. But the fact remains he used the official letter head of the Northern Provincial Council in which he claims the case against Premananda and others was “false” and “Ram Jethmalani knows it.” This is an insult to the judges of all three courts who found Premananda and others guilty by someone who sat as a Justice in the Supreme Court of Ceylon!  

Premananda’s global l followers, however, continue to  maintain that he is an embodiment of  divinity, an Avatar on a par with the greatest saints and a being of the highest purity who embodies powers beyond the knowledge of science. “I am also being tested by God” Premananda said after his arrest. “As a result I am sure that I will be made known to all humanity.” 

According to Indian newspapers and tabloid magazines,  he is the most despicable criminal in the history of Tamil Nadu state, but according to Premananda’s innumerable supporters, including Chief Minister Wigneswaran, “the  charges against Premananda  are a scandalous miscarriage of justice that is bound to shake the conscience of the world. It is a case, some say, of the deepest extremes: of good against evil, of sinners against saints, and of a symbol for man’s eternal struggle for righteousness and truth.”  

God men do extraordinarily well in India than in most others and that is where the puzzle lies. Premananda is not the only villain in the business of exploiting the weak and the gullible, there are other discredited god men in India who ended in jail  for long years accused mostly for murder and sexual exploits of their devotees.  

Here is a list of top god men who have been exposed as murderers and rapists. Indians are ridiculously superstitious in believing that bad karma  gets wiped clean by going on pilgrimage and taking a dip in  holy rivers, breaking coconuts, offering fruits, milk, donations for happiness and performing penance etc.etc. People are desperately looking for some kind of hope or escape that can rescue them out of their grinding poverty or worries. And fake god men  take  undue advantage of this fact . 

(1) Gurmeet Ram Rathi Singh Insan is the head of the Sera Sacha Sauda sect has 2 murder charges against him.  

(2) Jayendra Saraswathi of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peedam was accused of murdering a temple manager Sankararaman. He was acquitted when witnesses went back on their evidence.  

(3) Asaram Babu was arrested in 2013 after a 16-year old girl accused of him of sexually assaulting her at his Jodhpur Ashram .He along with his son Aryan Sai, have been accused of being involved in the mysterious deaths of two boys who were studying in his Ashram .  

(4) Sant Rampal. On 18 November 2004, the Haryana police found the bodies of five women and an 18-month-old child at his Satlok Ashram  in Hisar where they had gone to arrest him in regard to another case. Sant Rampal had earlier been jailed for 22 months after he was charged with the murder of a man.

(5)  Chandraswami is  alleged to have been involved in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. . An income-tax raid on Chandraswami’s Ashram  reportedly uncovered drafts of payments, totalling $11 million, paid to arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. In 1996, he was arrested on charges of defrauding a London-based businessman of $100,000, and in June 2011, the Supreme Court fined him Rs 9 crores for violating the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act.  

(6) Paramahamsa Nithyananda was arrested and spent 52 days in jail in 2010 after a leaked video showed him engaged in sexual activities with Tamil actress Ranjith. Both Nithyananda and Ranjith insisted that the video was morphed, a claim that was later proven by a confession by the ex-COO of Sun TV. However, in 2012, Indian-born American citizen Arthi Rao claimed that he had raped her for several years.  

(7) Santhosh Madhavan alias Swami Amrita Chaitanya was sentenced to 16 years of rigorous imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 2,10,000 in 2009. A year earlier, he was with the rapes of three minor girls and a 22-year-old woman, making pornographic videos, financial fraud and possession of narcotics. He had also been arrested by Interpol in March 2008 for duping an NRI woman of Rs 45 lakhs.  

(8) Gnyanachaitanya was convicted of three murders and spent 14 years in jail. After his release, he met a British family and convinced them that their daughter Amanda was his ‘wife’ in a previous birth. He then sexually abused and physically tortured her for years. After she escaped and complained to her parents and the police, Gnyanachaitanya was arrested again.  

(9) Sreehari, also known by the name of Ganga Shashwatapada Swamy   has allegedly been continuously raped a woman  for several years. The woman  chopped off his private parts to resist a recent sexual attack. He is a resident of an Ashram  in Kulam district of Kerala and has been admitted to the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College. 

Hindu scriptures psychologically soften the mind and make followers to be more prone to magic and tricks. The Vedas and epics urge people the numerous ways the gods must be pleased with libations and lavish praise, to win wars, beget sons, and acquire immeasurable wealth. While other religions frighten devotees with religious wrath, Hindu texts instead take the route of pleasing their gods who are always open to persuasion. One of these days someone might make the announcement that he is Premananda in his/her  previous birth.

(Concluded)