Sathya Sai Baba Bedroom Murders
 Much
has been written about the murders in Sathya Sai's apartments on June
6, 1993. Six deaths occurred in Sathya Sai's apartments that night. Two of Sathya Sai Baba's attendants, his personal valet
Radhakrishna Menon and a young male servitor, Sai Kumar Mahajan,  were
killed - allegedly by some of five intruders into the temple in a knife struggle (though this is unconfirmed by recorded evidence and quite another theory has been put forward as to how the actually died. The critical investigator, Basava Premanand , claimed they were poisoned beforehand (by Sai Baba in the buttermilk?), but this issue was never cleared up. However, a comment by eyewitness Eileen Weed made in 2012 re Premanand's account is illumining: "Hmm! About Radhakrishna and Mahajan being poisoned and dying beforehand - did not hear that one before! Well, I thought I saw Radhakrishna's body being taken out of the Mandir and hearing that he was stabbed multiple times, but that is only what I heard - right at that moment (less time for lies to be created and fester). Though who knows - I only know what I saw and heard that night!" Further, the large amount of blood on the interview room floor must be explained, and the killing of the two servitors fits that, since the blood was seen very early on in the episode by numerous reports.Four of the intruders (armed with knives) were locked into Sai Baba's bedroom apartment for hours and – after the long stand-off - were subsequently executed by a hail of bullets from the Puttaparthi police. Since there has been no charges of murder or court case, and since much evidence had been destroyed, ignored or hidden by the Puttaparthi police, a Central Federal Bureau investigation was appointed, only to be disbanded when it was nearing results. Therefore its collected evidence was never made public and so many questions remain open. One certain fact is that there was a major cover-up to the highest levels! Cover-up of the executions of June 6 th , 1993: The CBI investigation was begun because the Puttaparthi police report was patently untrue and was evidently thoroughly concocted. Much evidence was lost - and forensic and other evidence was destroyed prior to any trial. This means the destruction was purposive. The CBI investigation was hindered by higher authority by re-posting the two chief officers in charge before they could report their findings officially and the entire case was soon later quashed by government authorities in all possible silence. That a major cover-up took place is entirely without doubt. Yet fanatical Sai devotees [like Mr. Chris Parnell of the Australian Sathya Sai Organization] argue against their own better knowledge - that it was all satisfactorily cleared up! A despicable deception so as to try to save Sathya Sai Baba and dupe devotees into keeping faith with him, an issue with strong political and other investments for the government and judiciary. |
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Fame for Sai - or notoriety? Tanya Datta: So are you suggesting that the police executed the boys that night? The above is part of the transcript of the BBC documentary ‘The Secret Swami' sent worldwide by BBC World. see the relevant Secret Swami video clip here )
Increased fame has not resulted, but increased ‘notoriety' certainly
has! So much for yet another of Sathya Sai's so-called “infallible
Divine Predictions”! Who was the intruders target? Other high Sai officials were removed for financial irregularities within the year by Sathya Sai, and all this despite Sai having angrily denounced in the Guru Poornima discourse all suggestions that misuse of funds or any fractions ever arose in the Trust. R.V. Janakiramaiah After
the murders and cold-blooded executions which Janakiramaiah was
What became of Non-violence and Compassion? But most people with their hearts still in the right place would consider that – if one really knew the future – Sai's not telling his close devotees of such an awful fate he knew to be awaiting them runs counter to any reasonable kind of love and compassion (which he has promised his devotees, as well as protection). Instead, this self-claimed “all-powerful Lord” actually ran away while the knifings were going on and locked the escape door after him from the outside, trapping four assailants in his bedroom apartment. Nor did Sai Baba lift a finger to avert it as it all took place under 'His Divine Nose', nor saying a single word to stop the shooting of the four who had long been, and still were, his devoted followers. He is known to have been consulted where he hid in his garage building attached to the temple well before the police shot down at close range in a hail of dozens of bullets the four young men who were armed only with knives! This completely exposes the hypocrisy in Sai Baba with his oft-quoted aphorisms like 'Help ever, hurt never.' Sai Baba is always preaching about how thoughts, words and actions must be in accord. But his verbal support of non-violence as a human values should surely also include active help and not being an accomplice - whether passive or active - to cold-blooded murder? Nor was he willing to appear before authorities for questioning and he helped engineer the effective cover-up through his discourse and many private meetings with the Home Minister, his devotee S.B. Chavan. No wonder
residents and especially the foreign visitors at Prashanti Nilayam were
seen to wander about with tired, worried faces, or sitting at darshan
in perplexed absence of mind (if not exactly the ‘mindlessness' so
strongly encouraged by Sathya Sai!). How could the question that must
have crossed their minds as to why Sai Baba did not intervene
personally disappear from the thoughts of the great majority of them so
soon and effectively? The intruders had all been his own students, the
product of his own teachings!' No such 'demonic' doubts can be
entertained by those who are – according to the flattery of their
Divine Manipulator - the very grain, the fruit of humanity, the good
devotees whose service has already saved the planet from catastrophe?
Those who remained were hard core blind-faith believers who will not
think, see, or hear any unpalatable truth (at least, about Sathya Sai
Baba!). An eyewitness, Eileen Weed (aka 'Divya') who was living with Sai Baba's sister Venkamma has described the events of that night and added the following, which just shows the mentality which allowed the murders to be covered up:- On 2. sep. 2012, at 15.10, Divya wrote: "We all heard the next morning that SB gave the OK to kill the intruders after being strongly advised to do so, and that Janikiram was with SB then also and agreed (and someone else too, was it Jogo Rao? I forgot who). We did not have much shock about it - after all, we were brainwashed with stories of Rama and Krishan, it was natural for us to accept Avatars wanted to murder the bad guys; plus, we thought, much better to avoid controversy and possible unpleasant truths (or what we thought might be lies) getting out. |
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involved in forcing the police to carry out, he is on record for having
constantly insisted was genuinely an assassination attempt against Sai,
he was at last made a trustee by his elder brother, which post he held
until he died in about 2004. As is known to many ashramites and most
Puttaparthi residents, Janakiramiah had become a multi-millionaire in
dollars from property speculation and owning corrupt businesses in Puttaparthi. V.K. Narasimhan, who knew him very well, told me in 1996
that Janaki Ram had become rich “beyond his wife's wildest dreams”.
Besides, he has
constantly claimed in public to know everything about everyone! He
could have averted or altered this if Radhakrishna Menon had not chosen
to go out, so why did he instead speak as if in riddles… why did he not
simply say what the danger was? According to what the former Head of
the Administration building told me a decade previously, Baba had once
acted in a way I find interesting in this connection. To the one-time
head of the ashram, Mr. Kutumba Rao, who received his first longed-for
interview after 20 years waiting, was taken into the private room only
to be told that a murderer was on the way to kill him and that he must
leave the ashram immediately until further notice. He did leave at the
time and was temporarily replaced by Mr. Chiranjia Rao (subsequently
made a member of the Sathya Sai Central Trust). This covert
obliqueness, however, is typical of Sathya Sai, of his very seldom
making anything clear enough, or of clothing information in vague
phrases, and very often in deceptive ambiguities. Of such arts he is
truly a master. 
INDIAN MEDIA REPORTS ON THE MURDERS (BRIEF SELECTION)
Indian Express, Vijayawada 11-7-1993 Sources close to Ravi’s family alleged that the four persons reportedly killed in police firing at Prashanthi Nilayam on June 6 were actually beaten to death by Baba’s brother R.V. Janakiramaiah and his men. For certain benefits the local police hand-in-glove with Janakiramaiah later arranged a scene as if they killed the four accused in self-defence.
An armed police party led by the local circle inspector, Mr. K.N. Gangadhar Reddy, rushed to the ashram; the foursome hid in a bedroom on the first floor. The policemen gained entry to the room by breaking the doors. They fired at the assailants in self-defence, when the latter pounced upon them with daggers, refusing to surrender. However there is no clear evidence to corroborate this version.
The Hindu, Hyderabad 27-10-1995 Police Reshuffle. Oct. 26. In a reshuffle of senior IPS officers, Mr. H.J. Dora, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) was transferred and posted as additional DGP, CID. H.J. Dora is referred to as Sai Baba’s ‘Man Friday’, directed the filing of the false First Incident Report and destroyed much evidence, and thereby is promoted.
The Hitavada, Nagpur 24-6-1993 The happenings at the abode of the controversial godman Satya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi, took an intriguing turn with the revelation that the four assailants, who made an alleged attempt on the godman’s life, were mercilessly killed by the armed policemen at the instance of some important functionaries of the Satya Sai Trust. The vernacular press on Wednesday morning, quoting eyewitness accounts, came out with damning evidence against the trust authorities. The news reports alleged that the police had resorted to this, to hush up the truth.
The Hindu, Coimbatore 18-6-1993 An examination of the pictures taken by a photographer on the request of the local police, revealed that all was not as natural as it appeared. Many of those pictures showing the suspected assailants lying in blood also show pieces of rope around. A few days later, the CID officials seized the negatives and reportedly went around Puttaparthi and Anantapur in an attempt to seize any positive prints.
Frontline 2-7-1993 Having finished their job in the interview room, the assailants managed to force open Sai Baba’s bedroom door, flicked a switch to sound a siren, the existence of which very few knew about till then. On a campus where devotees are hushed into silence by the omnipresent volunteers of the Sri Satya Sai Seva Dal, the siren woke up everyone. It alerted the residents of the adjoining Puttaparthi village. The floodlights around the mandiram complex were switched on.
Soon thousands surrounded the mandiram, wielding sticks and other weapons. They were restrained with difficulty by senior members of the ashram. A police constable who arrived at the spot was too scared to go inside to investigate.
Deccan Herald, Bangalore 20-2-1994 Vijay and Ravi are understood to have told the police that they, along with their four slain colleagues, wanted to stage a coup and gain control of the ashram so as to ‘free the Baba from the clutches of the mafia controlling him’. They have said that they wanted to bring to Baba’s attention the ‘financial misdeeds’ of the trustees.The Statesman, Delhi November 1) “Equally controversial has been the wiry-haired Sai Baba who has the country’s who’s who lining up for his darshan at Prashanti Nilayam at Andhra. A 1993 incident in which police shot dead four of his followers and his attendants murdered two was hushed up with intervention from the top the then home minister, SB Chavan. The Baba, who was present when the four were shot dead, was never questioned.”
Times of India 27-10-1993 Ravindra Baba and Vijay Shantaram Prabhu… were intensively interrogated by the Nagpur police before being handed over to their Andhra counterparts, who had come here to take them back to Puttaparthi. The details of the interrogation were made available to The Times of India News Service. Prabhu reportedly told the police that he and those shot dead by the police were all staunch devotees of Sai Baba. According to him, a coterie of five persons staying at the Puttaparthi ashram were misappropriating cash and jewellery offerings made by the devotees to the Baba and [?] been duped of several lakhs of rupees in cash and kind. When Prabhu and his associates protested against this, the five men threatened them with dire consequences. The names of these five persons have been disclosed to the Nagpur police. Prabhu said that he finally took up the matter with the godman, who expressed his anguish over the development but said he could not initiate any action against the inmates unless there was concrete evidence. Prabhu knew the room where the loot was stashed before being taken outside the complex. He, along with a few other devotees, planned to immobilise the persons by using chloroform. It was also decided to burst crackers somewhere in the complex in order to divert the attention of the guards. The material needed for the operation was purchased in Bangalore. However, the moment the men with the key to the room were pounced upon, they raised an alarm. The coterie was alerted. It was then made to appear that an attempt on the Baba’s life has been made.
"The police report was twice changed, from attempt to murder Baba to internal squabbles in Prashanti Nilayam. Mysteriously, Shankar Dayal Sharma, the President of the Indian Republic deviated from protocol and propriety and said that the murders were "all about a girl". When asked why Satya Sai Baba, the head of the Institution in whose bedroom the murders took place, was not interrogated, Home Minister Chavan who visited Sai Baba twice immediately after the incident insisted that Sai Baba was not present at the time of murder, further compromising the investigation. Surprisingly, Prashanti Nilayam authorities themselves filed no police complaint." by G.R.R. Babu, General Secretary, RATIONALIST ASSOCIATION OF INDIA(posted at http://www.nhne.com/specialreports/srsaibaba.html#sex)