The Delhi High Court has dismissed the bail petition of an astrologer, who allegedly touched a woman inappropriately and stabbed her for ‘human sacrifice’.
A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Yogesh Khanna, while considering the petition on August 12, observed that cross-examination of the woman in question is yet to be conducted.
The plea was filed by one Arun Kumar alias Suraj Shastri. The allegations against the applicant were that he being an astrologer, had cheated the complainant for a sum of Rs.1.50 lakh from a woman, on the pretext of improving the health of her mother, as also to solve her personal problems.
The astrologer harassed the woman for about one-and-a-half year. On May 4, 2018, he took her to a hotel in Delhi, where the accused said he will perform puja for about three-and-a-half hours.
Arun kept chanting mantras for about two hours and then he gave a break and asked the woman to sit on the bed. Thereafter, he touched the woman inappropriately and even gave a knife blow at her neck.
The victim tried to reach the door of the said room, but the astrologer pushed her inside the washroom and stabbed her many times with a knife. The woman managed to escape from the room. The hotel staff saw her condition, took her in a separate room and called the police.
The Additional Public Prosecutor for the state submitted that probably, the petitioner was trying to perform a human sacrifice and during the said incident, the woman suffered a total of seven injuries, including three on her neck.
In light of these facts, the Court dismissed the bail petition. The Bench, however, ordered that the “petitioner is at liberty to move an application after the cross examination of the witness is complete.”