A key witness in the Asaram Jodhpur rape case has died after being attacked in Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
Kripal Singh was shot at in Shajahanpur on Friday allegedly by Asaram supporters and was taken to Bareilly for treatment. He succumbed to his injuries on Saturday.
This was the fifth attack on his witnesses since the the self styled godman was put behind bars in rape cases.
In May, Mahendra Chawla, the prime witness in the sexual exploitation case against Asaram and his son Narayan Sai, was shot at in Haryana.
In Jnuary, another witness in a rape case against Asaram was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar. Police said Akhil Gupta, 35, was shot by unknown persons on his way home. He was the second witness to be killed in the case after Amrut Prajapati, a former Asaram aide who was shot dead in June last year in Gujarat.
Gupta was a cook and a personal aide of Asaram Bapu, who has been in jail since August, 2013, for allegedly sexually assaulting a schoolgirl.
In March, a key witness in the Asaram rape case was attacked by unidentified assailants in Surat city.
According to the police, the 40-year-old witness in the case, Rakesh Patel, who had a video-shooting and photography business, was returning home in Paal locality, when two motorcycle-borne assailants intercepted his bike near his home.
If that is not all, in 2013, the family of the girl who accused Asaram Bapu of sexually assaulting her claimed that they had received death threats from followers of Asaram.
In October 2013, the then Surat Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Shobha Bhutada filed a complaint stating that she had been receiving threatening calls from supporters of Asaram.