Cops focus on electronic devices for evidence in ashram sexual exploitation case

Pune: Police will closely study all electronic devices, including laptops, tablets and pen drives, recovered from the self-styled guru’s bungalow-cum-ashram at Ubalenagar in Wagholi and send them for forensic examination to gather more evidence.As many as 19 hard disks, 12 laptops, a tablet, 11 cellphones, DVDs, CDs, 23 pen drives were seized from the bungalow of the arrested guru, Radhamohan Mishra, during the raid in the early hours of Wednesday. “We will study all these electronic devices thoroughly and conduct forensic examination for further probe,” said additional commissioner of police (crime) Tejaswi Satpute.Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Gauhar Hasan said, “We suspect that these electronic storage devices will have a lot of incriminating evidence.

We will try to locate the women if we stumble upon their clips in these electronic storage devices.”The police said they were expecting more women to come forward with their complaints against Mishra. “We suspect that he might have sexually exploited many women. We have appealed to victims to approach the police with their complaints,” Satpute said.A victim (41) from Sinhagad Road, an employee of a prominent company in the city, lodged a police complaint on Tuesday night against the guru, hailing from Haryana.

A team of 200 police personnel had raided Mishra’s bungalow in the early hours of Wednesday. Besides him, his seven disciples, including six women, were arrested.According to the police, Mishra called women, mostly highly educated, to his bungalow with the promise of solving their family, health and financial problems. He would then sexually abuse them, the police said..Mishra settled in Pune eight years ago. He ran his ashram from the Ubalenagar bungalow.