Indian-holiman,
Swamy brain-wash UK NRI girl,
marry and tortured her
Kozhikode, April 19, 2005
An army deserter and murderer-turned-holy man, who
conned the 23-year-old daughter of a British shipbroker
into marrying him and tortured her for a year at his
ashram, was arrested today at Kottakkal near here,
police said.
The woman, Amanda Williams, and her father A.R. Williams
are of Indian origin. Williams's great-great-grandfather,
who belonged to Kolkata, had migrated to the Carribbean
Islands looking for work. There, the family set up
and ran a shipbroking business before Williams's father
migrated to London. "They had a complicated civil
litigation going on in the Carribbeans with a fortune
at stake. A London-based Keralite NRI got the Williams
in touch with the holy man in Kottakkal, who offered
to solve their problem. Many phone calls, webcam chats
and emails later, they landed up in Kottakkal,"
says Rajeev Lakshmanan, Amanda's lawyer here. Lakshmanan
says neither Williams nor his daughter knew then that
the 45-year-old Swami Gnana Chaitanya of the Shiva
Shringam Ashram was a former convict whose real name
was P.M. Sudhakaran.
"He was an Armyman who shot at and injured a
senior officer in a camp in Bangalore and then escaped
with his sten gun. To escape the police, Sudhakaran
tried to hijack a car and shot dead its owner and
his two friends when they resisted. He ended up spending
13 years and nine months in jail for that before he
was released in 1992," the lawyer added.
Sudhakaran, married with six children who lived with
him in the ashram along with his wife, performed many
rituals to ward off evil and gained the father and
daughter's confidence. "By then, Amanda had been
taken in by Sudhakaran. They used to chat on the Internet
for long after she went back to England," Lakshmanan
said.
Soon, the Williams were back at Kottakkal for a "special
puja". Sudhakaran convinced the father and daughter
that Amanda used to be his "consort" in
their last birth and must therefore marry him or face
Lord Shiva's wrath. He married Amanda on April 15
last year. "For good measure, he got Amanda's
father to give him about Rs 15 lakh in cash, and buy
him a Tata Safari and an expensive motorbike,"
Lakshmanan added.
"He got Williams to arrange for the papers to
help him relocate to London. Williams told me he had
used all his resources there and even managed to represent
personally to Prime Minister Tony Blair for his son-in-law
after the application was rejected. It was only then
that Williams came to know about Sudhakaran's criminal
record," he said.
By then, Amanda started complaining about the tortures
and sexual abuses she had to face in the ashram.
"She wrote a long email to her father when Sudhakaran
was away in Mumbai, detailing the tortures and sexual
perversions that the Swami forced on her. Her father
forwarded the email to me. I got in touch with the
Arya Samaj in Kozhikode immediately," said Lakshmanan.
The district Arya Samaj office confirmed that Lakshmanan
had approached them. "The lawyer came to us and
we thought this was a big disgrace needing our intervention.
We sent a group of our members to the ashram and brought
her back to Kozhikode," it said.
After his return from Mumbai, Sudhakaran lodged a
‘missing wife' complaint with the police. The
Arya Samaj then rushed Amanda to her lawyer's office.
Sudhakaran reached there a with police team to take
her back, but Amanda said she feared for her life.
The police took her to a court in Manjeri where Amanda
gave a sworn statement. The court then ordered she
be allowed to be with her lawyer till her father came
to take her back to London.
Williams reached Malappuram two days ago and took
away his daughter yesterday. Sudhakaran was arrested
today. Malappuram SP, K.G. James said Sudhakaran has
been charged under Sections 420 and 498 of the IPC
for torture and cheating. He will be produced in court
tomorrow.
The Indian Express
