Asaram rape-case: All about the cop who led the probe
What's the story
On Wednesday, a special Jodhpur court convicted Asaram of raping a 16-year-old girl at his city ashram in 2013. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Ajay Pal Lamba, the senior police officer who investigated the rape charges against Asaram, received over 2,000 threatening letters and countless phone calls while conducting the probe. Here's all about Lamba and his extraordinary courage.
Details
Lamba was given the case on August 20, 2013
According to Hindustan Times, Lamba was the deputy commissioner of police, Jodhpur West, when he was given his career's most controversial case yet on August 20, 2013. There was a constant media scrutiny, witnesses were being killed and policemen threatened by Asaram's followers. How could Lamba be left out? He received all sorts of threats - physical, verbal, written - through letters and calls.
Threats
He wouldn't let his wife, daughter leave the house
"The letters carried abuses and threatened they would kill my family if anything happened to Asaram. My phone would not stop ringing and I stopped receiving calls from unknown numbers," Lamba told HT. It got so dangerous at one point that he didn't send his daughter to school for quite a while and his wife wouldn't step out of the house.
Investigation
Asaram was arrested within a month of filing FIR
The first chargesheet took a little over 10 weeks to file, claims Lamba. The trickiest part, according to him, was arresting Asaram. It took an 11-member police team about 10 hours to just deliver a summon notice to his Madhya Pradesh ashram, thanks to a mob of 8,000 followers wreaking havoc. But despite it all, they managed to arrest him on August 30, 2013.
Justice
'Even the weakest can take on the most influential'
Asaram is in the Jodhpur Central Jail since the past 56 months. Hailing his conviction as "historic", Lamba said, "It shows that if the law works impartially, even persons from the weakest sections of the society can take on the most influential ones and get justice." Now a superintendent of police (anti-corruption bureau) in Jodhpur, Lamba is a 2005 batch Indian Police Service officer.