The godman Sathiya Narayana and his wife Pushpalatha are accused of threatening the victim as he raped her multiple times over the years, and got her pregnant.
A Chennai-based godman Sathiya Narayanan and his wife Pushpalatha were arrested by city police on Saturday, December 18, for allegedly raping a woman since her teenage years and also for impregnating her. Police said that the godman had continued to rape the woman after her marriage in 2018 and threatened to leak her photos online or send them to her husband if she complained.
The accused couple, Sathiya Narayanan and his wife Pushpalatha have been running Shirdipuram Sarva Sakthi Peedam Trust at Vinayakapuram in Chennai since 2012. According to the police, the complainant who lodged a case at the police station said that she was 16-years-old and was staying at her grandmother’s house when the accused Sathiya Narayanan raped her with the help of his wife. The FIR copy stated that godman Sathiya Narayanan claimed to “free the victim of her sins” by raping her.
The FIR stated that on April 12, 2016, the victim had gone to the Trust to get some thiruneeru (sacred ash), where she was offered a glass of juice by Pushpalatha. “I fell unconscious after drinking the juice. A few hours later I regained consciousness, and I found myself naked while Sathiya Narayanan and his wife Pushpalatha were sitting nearby. They had taken my naked pictures and warned me not to speak of the incident,” the victim told the police.
The victim shifted from the location and got married in 2018 when she was 18 years old. The police said that the accused Sathiya Narayanan had contacted the woman in March 2020 and had raped her multiple times, impregnating her in July 2020. The FIR quoted the victim, “Knowing that my husband worked abroad, the godman insisted I visit him in March last year. When I resisted, he threatened to send the pictures to my husband. The couple also insisted that I abort the baby.”
The FIR stated that the victim tried to kill herself due to repeated harassment. In January 2021 she delivered a baby. The FIR further added that the victim’s husband had come to India and returned to work in November 2021. Yet again, hearing about this, Sathiya Narayanan threatened the victim to visit him. “Unable to bear the harassment, the victim finally opened up about the incidents to her husband, and registered a case with the police,” added the FIR.
The Madhavaram All Women police registered a case on Saturday morning and took the accused couple in custody on the same day. Cases have been booked under IPC Sections 328 (hurting the person with use of poison or durg), Section 506 (ii) (punishment for criminal intimidation), Section 376 (rape charges) and Prevention of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act and its Section 5 (f) (penetrative sexual assault), Section 11 (threatening with photos) and Section 17 (punishment for abetment).
Source: The News Minute