A Chandigarh-based Christian godman and self-styled faith Christian healer has been arrested for allegedly raping a woman from Zirakpur.
Accused Bajinder Singh, 36, President of The Church of Glory and Wisdom, Chandigarh, and known among his followers as Prophet Bajinder Singh Ministry, was arrested at the Delhi airport when he was about to board a flight to London where he was scheduled to attend a healing event on 21st July, said Pawan Kumar, a Zirakpur station house officer (SHO).
He was produced before a Mohali court on Thursday and sent to two-day police remand.
The victim, a resident of Zirakpur running a ‘dhaba’ (roadside eatery) there, told police that the pastor had come in contact with her in 2017 and lured her on the pretext of taking her board. She started working as a volunteer for Singh looking after the security arrangements at his events.
She alleged that Singh sexually assaulted her at his house in Chandigarh and made a video of the same, which he used to threaten her if she ever complained or rejected his demands. Pawan Kumar, the SHO, also revealed that the victim had paid the accused pastor a sum of three lakh for promising her to be taken abroad.
He further clarified that “We had received a complaint of rape from the woman in May this year. The accused was on the run since then. We had got a lookout notice issued against him. We nabbed him when he was leaving for England,” the SHO said.
The FIR registered, named few other people, close aides of the priest, namely Jatinder, Akbar, Sartar Ali, Sucha Singh, Rajesh Chaudhary and Sandeep Pehlwan, alleging of physically assaulting the victim.
A case has been registered under Sections 376 (rape), 420 (cheating), 354 (outraging modesty of woman), 294 (obscenity), 323 (causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67 (transmitting sexually explicit content) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
The self-styled Godman, who claims of healing serious illnesses like HIV infections, paralysis by simply applying his prayed anointing oil, curing a deaf and dumb child by using the same oil and many more (many such so-called miracles posted on his Facebook page) with around 77,513 followers on Facebook and running a youtube channel with 1.37 lakh subscribers has a shady past too.
Born into a Jat family in Haryana’s Yamunanagar, Bajinder converted to Christianity when he was lodged in jail in a murder case. “During his stay in the jail, he came in contact with a pastor and got inclined towards Christianity. He used to read Bible daily and got converted,” said police officials privy to the investigations.
His close associate, who was not willing to be named, said Bajinder started holding Sunday prayer meetings for healing in 2012 and gradually became popular with attracting almost around 2000 people in every meeting.