Ram Bahadur Bomjon found guilty of raping a minor :: Setopati :: Setopati

The Sarlahi District Court on Monday found Ram Bahadur Bomjon, who lived in the guise of a strict sage, guilty of raping minors.

According to judicial officer Sadan Adhikari, the court headed by Justice Jivan Kumar Bhandari has found Bomjon guilty of sexual abuse of a minor. However, the quantum of punishment has not yet been decided and will be announced on July 1.

However, two other accused, Gyan Bahadur and Dig Bahadur, were acquitted in the case.

Police had filed the case of sexual abuse of a minor in the Sarlahi District Court after Ganga Maya filed a complaint alleging that Bomjon had raped her when she was a minor.

Bomjon was arrested in Budhanilkantha on January 9.

Five separate police complaints were filed in different districts alleging that family members had disappeared from Bomjon’s ashram after Setopati published a news report on December 26, 2018, titled “Series of Sexual Exploitation and Violence in Bomjon’s Ashrams,” which documented that four people from his ashram were missing.

Mahendra Waiwa of Makwanpur filed a police complaint demanding a search for his father who had gone to Bomjon Ashram, Hasta Bahadur Ale Magar of Bara in search of his son, Bijay Rumba of Makwanpur in search of her elder sister and Ganga Maya Tamang of Nuwakot in search of her younger sister. Waiwa of Hetauda 14 sub-metropolitan town filed a police complaint claiming that his father Sancha Lal was missing from Bomjon Ashram for the last four years.

Waiwa’s father had called from Bomjon’s ashram in Badegaun, Sindhupalchowk on March 28, 2015, saying that he would return home in three days. He had already lodged a complaint with the police when his father did not return home even after 10 days. Two days later, he went to the ashram only to find that his father had already left the ashram.

In his complaint, he mentioned that his father was not found despite years of search. Police arrested Sancha Lal’s friend Indra Man Syangtan, who was allegedly beaten along with the missing Waiwa by Bomjon and his disciples in 2014, from another ashram in Paire Dhapasar of Kamalamai-8 in Sindhuli for questioning.

Rumba from Rangashala, Hetauda, ​​filed the complaint seeking his elder sister Phul Maya Rumba, who was called Dolmo in Bomjon’s ashram. Rumba mentioned that his sister, who was living in the ashram since 2011, had called from the ashram in Badegaun, Sindhupalchowk in February 2015 and said she would soon be coming home to see her parents. Her parents were told that she had left the ashram in April when they were supposed to meet him in June. Since that last phone call, she has not been in touch.

Dolmo’s friend Karma Tamang from Nuwakot, known as Chunmo in the ashram, is also missing. “The younger sister of this applicant had gone to Bomjon Ashram in Sindhuli for studies in 2011,” Chunmo’s elder sister Ganga Maya Tamang said in her complaint filed with Nuwakot police. “She had come home with a friend in 2012 and stayed for a day. They returned to the ashram. Since then, they have had no contact. I have filed this application and requested the necessary search.”

Ganga Maya and her family had tried to meet Bomjon after Chunmo disappeared, but he refused to meet. She said that people close to Bomjon told them that they did not know where Chunmo had gone after he left the ashram.

Mahendra Waiwa, Bijay Rumba and Ganga Maya Tamang were unaware of the violence and murder of their father and sisters respectively until Setopati published the news reports.

Hasta Bahadur Ale Magar, who contacted Setopati after the news reports were published and informed him that his son Suresh had also been missing from Bomjon’s ashram for the past three years, also filed a complaint with the police.

Magar’s son Suresh, who had been living in Bomjon’s ashram, had returned home after the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. Magar claimed that Bomjon’s disciple Jas Bahadur Waiwa convinced his son, who had returned home for good, to return to the ashram and took him on a motorcycle. Magar claimed that his son had not been in touch with him since then. “I request to find out his actual condition and rescue him as he has disappeared from Ram Bahadur Bomjon’s ashram,” Magar’s complaint said.

Sumni Bot of Kajiram Tole in Bagmati Municipality 12, Sarlahi, also filed a police complaint stating that her daughter Rita was missing from Halkhoriya Ashram in Bomjon.

The plaintiff claimed that Bomjon once came to her home with her daughter Rita and stayed for a month. The daughter dug up the photos buried underground and burned them when she returned home for the last time and never returned, the lawsuit says. “The daughter, who left after burning the photos, did not return. Bomjon herself came once and asked for Rita. Disclose her whereabouts,” the lawsuit says.