Belgaum: A self styled godman and his barbaric acts have shocked the people in Belgaum district of Karnataka. A seven-year-old girl was rescued from the ashram of the self styled godman Sadashiv alias Appayya Swamy and his aides. The police have rescued the little girl from the ashram and arrested the fake godman. He has now been sent to a jail. The fake godman claims that he has adopted the girl child. The traumatized child has been admitted to a hospital.
The fake godman claimed that the girl had not taken food or water for 20 days and he had kept her alive through spiritual powers. According to media reports, the police have found food, water, kerosene and other items used for rituals inside the 11 X 1 feet wide and 9 feet high cell, where the child Nijalingamma Channappa Doddamani was kept. The local administration has also rescued five more children from the ashram.
The fake godman had publicised that he was performing the Yog Samadhi of a girl child for the welfare of the society. He had claimed that the girl would be burnt alive and brought back to the life on Maha Shivaratri day. He had distributed pamphlets and collected even donations from the villagers. According to a report in a local newspaper ashram authorities placed the girl under logs of wood and burnt the pyre
As hundreds of devotees witnessed the event amid chants, the girl was whisked away and her body smeared with black paint and ash to show that she had been charred to death. Later she was confined in the underground cellar and the plan was to produce her alive on Shivarathri day to fool the devotees.
Appayya Swami claimed he had adopted the girl and that her parents are from Soorpali in Jamkhandi taluk of Bagalkot district. But the police claim that that the adoption was illegal as no mandatory adoption procedures were followed.
The district authorities are shocked that the local villagers did not even inform the police and other concerned departments. The government has decided to take up the responsibility of the girl. The district administration is trying to trace her parents.
The fake godman has been a notorious figure in the area, which is steeped in superstition. According to a report in Times of India (TOI) in 2010, Appayya had been booked for attempt to suicide after he claimed to have sat in an underground cell without food and air for 15 days, surviving only on his spiritual powers. Two atrocity cases had registered against him but he was acquitted in both cases as they were proven false due to lack of evidence.
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