Man alleges assault by supporters of UP 'preacher'

Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh), March 22 (IANS) A man has alleged that he was assaulted by the supporters of religious preacher Santosh Singh Bhadoria of Kanpur's famous Karauli Ashram.

The man claimed that he did not benefit from the preacher's chanting, as promised, and had complained about the incident.

Bhadoria asked his supporters to thrash him, he claimed.

Siddharth Chaudhary, a doctor by profession and a devotee of Santosh Bhadoria, has filed a complaint with the Bidhnu police station.

He said in his complaint that he used to watch Santosh Bhadoria's videos on YouTube and was impressed by them. Later, he went to his ashram from Noida with his father and wife.

"I told Baba (Santosh Singh Bhadoria) that I was troubled. He blew through the mike and said 'Namah Shivay' twice -- to show magic -- though I did not feel anything. When I complained, he sent his bouncers at me and got me thrashed," said Chaudhary.

Police have registered cases under sections 323, 504 and 325 of the Indian Penal Code.

Meanwhile, Bhadoria has refuted the allegation and demanded a fair probe.

Speaking about the incident, the preacher said that this was a conspiracy and that the doctor was planted to tarnish his image. He added the doctor could be seen thanking him before leaving in the CCTV video.

When asked if he had the CCTV footage to support his claim, Bhadoria said that since CCTV data could be stored only for 14 days, he will not be able to provide the recordings.

According to police sources, there is a list of criminal cases against Bhadoria.

Between 1992-95, several criminal cases, including murder and CLA, were registered against him.

Bhadoria became the farmers' leader, supposedly to escape the police before he started illegally occupying land.

Even in the Kotwali police station area, he faces allegations of illegally occupying church land.

He then started uploading videos of solving problems with mantras on his YouTube channel -- Karauli Baba, which has 93,000 subscribers.

He was booked under the NSA on August 14, 1994, on the orders of the then District Magistrate Dinesh Singh.

Disclaimer: This story has not been edited by the Sakshi Post team and is auto-generated from syndicated feed.