Uttarakhand Govt trying to pin Ramdev over his missing guru

After having failed to convince the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) that the suspicious disappearance of Swami Shankar Dev and the mentor of yoga guru Baba Ramdev, can actually be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the State Government has now resorted to using the State police department for tightening the noose around a ‘defiant’ and ‘untamed’ Baba Ramdev, whose anti-corruption campaign has started hitting the Congress party hard.

In a desperate bid to make the central agency take up investigations in the case as soon as possible, the State police were recently directed to lodge a criminal complaint in the matter. This, because as per rules, the CBI simply cannot take up a case in which there is no police complaint. Interestingly, a constable with the Kankhal police, who did not even know Shankar Dev, has been made to say that the 77-year-old seer had not gone missing, but actually was ‘kidnapped’ in July 2007.

The State Government had on October 12 recommended a CBI probe into Shankar Dev’s suspicious disappearance from his ashram in Kankhal. This ostensibly came after a formal request by the saints of Bhartiya Sant Samaj led by its national president Acharya Pramod Krishnan.

The recommendation letter was immediately sent to the DoPT, which, in turn, asked the CBI to first give its opinion in the matter. “There was, however, a procedural error. The case could not be taken up as there was no police complaint. The Uttarakhand police have now lodged a criminal complaint and if the DOPT notifies than the CBI may take up the case for investigations,” CBI spokesperson, Dharini Mishra told The Pioneer over phone.

Station Officer of Kankhal police station, MC Joshi, confirmed that a complaint of Shankar Dev’s alleged kidnap by some ‘unidentified persons’ was registered in his police station on Sunday. He, however, refused to comment on the grounds on which one of the constables in his police station — Gajendra Singh — has been made to state this.

“Since you cannot lodge a police complaint about a person who has gone missing, the case has now been made into that of a kidnap. After all, there is no crime and hence no police complaint for a person who goes missing,” a senior IPS officer said, requesting anonymity.

Interestingly, the Uttarakhand Government had recommended CBI investigation in the case almost five years after the disappearance of Shankar Dev as well as after the cops had closed the case, saying that they were unable to trace Shankar Dev. The Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh had also raked up the issue before the media, saying that ‘something was wrong in the matter.’

Swami Shankar Dev, an ayurveda and yoga expert and founder of the Divya Yog Mandir Trust and Kripalu Bagh Ashram Trust, had gone missing under mysterious circumstances from his ashram in Kankhal here in July 2007. There is no information about his whereabouts after that. The seer, however, has suddenly become a kidnap victim rather than a missing person in the records of Haridwar police.

According to the people who had known Swami Shankar Dev, Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna were chosen by the former as his disciples in early 1990s.  After Shanker Dev’s disappearance, Balkrishna had approached the Kankhal police and lodged a missing persons’ report on July 14, 2007. The cops investigated the case for nearly five years and questioned several people, including some ashram inmates. The State police had finally submitted its closure report before a local court on 10 April 2012, saying that they were unable to trace the missing seer.

the poinnner.com