A seer of a Karnataka-based lingayat seminary who has been arrested for sexually assaulting minor girls was sent to police custody till September 5 by a Chitradurga district sessions court, ANI reported.
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, the chief pontiff of the Jagadguru Murugarajendra Vidyapeetha Mutt in Chitradurga city, was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act on August 27 after two school girls alleged that the seer sexually abused them for years during their stay at the seminary hostel.
In their complaints, the girls had told the police that Sharanaru would call them to his chambers on some pretext and sexually assault them. They alleged the seer had been assaulting one of them for the past three-and-a-half years and the other for the past one-and-a-half years.
The charges under the provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were added on Tuesday after it was found that one of the complainant is a Dalit. He was arrested on Thursday.
On Friday morning, the seer was shifted to district hospital after complaining of chest pain. He was taken to the district session in the afternoon on a wheelchair, reported NDTV.
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