CB-CID team arrests Shiva Shankar Baba in New Delhi

Court issues transit warrant for him to be taken to Chennai

Self-styled godman Shiva Shankar Baba, 72, was arrested by the Crime Branch-CID police in New Delhi on Wednesday. The arrest followed complaints of sexual abuse made against him by a few alumni of a residential school he founded on the city’s outskirts. The Mamallapuram all-women police station last week registered three cases against him under the IPC, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act. The State Commission for Protection of Child Rights inspected the school immediately after the complaints were made. The cases were transferred to the CB-CID by the Director General of Police on June 13. After the CB-CID took over the cases, a team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Gunavarman, conducted a probe and launched a search for Shiva Shankar Baba, who was said to be on a spiritual tour of north India. The Baba, who was reportedly admitted to a private hospital in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, disappeared after the CB-CID team reached there to secure him.