Controversial godman Sarathi Baba probe focus shifts to sexual escapades

Cuttack: Investigating the alleged sexual escapades of arrested self-styled godman Santosh Roul alias Sarathi Baba, the crime branch of Odisha police on Friday recorded statement of the woman medico before a first class magistrate here.

The statement of the 24-year-old final year MBBS student, who had allegedly accompanied the controversial godman on a trip to Hyderabad last month and stayed with him in a hotel for three days, were recorded under section 164(5)(a) of the CrPC, crime branch officers said.

The medico, in a written complaint to the police, had alleged she was coerced by four persons to accompany the godman to Hyderabad with threats of exposing a video clipping of her, recorded while she was bathing in the lodge of the godman's ashram during a stay there.

Naming four persons in her complaint, the woman had alleged they were previously associated to the godman, but had fallen out later.

While the crime branch had earlier recorded the statement of the medico in her house at Paradip under section 161 of the CrPC, she was brought here under police escort on Friday for recording her statement before a woman magistrate under oath, which had been made mandatory under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 2013.

Meanwhile, the crime branch also interrogated the four persons named in the controversial medico's FIR for the second time today and preferred to record the statements of one of them under oath before a magistrate.

Sources said investigating cops have laid their hands on certain documents corroborating the godman's trip to Hyderabad with the medico, which had been denied by him.

A police team was likely to go to Hyderabad on Monday in this connection, informed a crime branch officer.