(FirstPost)
Jodhpur could have witnessed a repeat of the violence and commotion that broke out on 25 August 2017, in Panchkula where yet another self-proclaimed godman — Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh — was convicted of rape. But 25 April couldn’t have turned out any different. While the conviction of Asaram or Asumal Sirumalani created waves in media and online, the situation was eerily quiet on the ground. The country, which has been witnessing a series of violent protests over the past few months, was spared another one.
How and why was Jodhpur spared the ire of blind followers of a con godman upon his conviction is a question that requires one to look beyond the police force visible at every nook and corner in the district, suggests a senior cop from Haryana Police. A straight comparison between the two states’ police would not give a true picture of what worked in Jodhpur but went wrong in Panchkula, he opines.
Asaram got a life sentence in the 2012 rape case after having spent five years in the same Jodhpur Central Jail where the verdict was announced on Wednesday by a special SC/ST court. Rajasthan Police seemed to have absorbed lessons from past experiences — when Asaram’s mighty followers went on a rampage after he was jailed in 2013 and when Panchkula bore the brunt of clashes between Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim’s followers and police forces last August. More than 38 people, most of them Dera followers who had camped in Panchkula, had died and hundreds of others were injured when riots broke out upon Ram Rahim’s conviction in a rape case by a CBI court.
