Delhi court sends yoga instructor to 1-day police custody for raping, cheating Italian woman

A Delhi court on Monday remanded to one-day custody a yoga instructor arrested for allegedly raping and cheating an Italian woman.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ankita Lal said that considering facts and circumstances of the case, the court deemed it fit to grant one-day police custody remand of accused Abhishek Singh, in order to facilitate the investigation.

Delhi Police submitted that the place of incident needs to be identified at the instance of the accused and he is also required for sustained interrogation. It is also submitted that the offence alleged is also serious in nature.

The counsel for the accused has strongly opposed the custody remand.

 

The magistrate also took note of Delhi High Court's February 14 order where the court directed Delhi Police to conduct custodial interrogation of the accused as per law.

Moreover, offence under Section 354A and 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has now been additionally added in the FIR, which entitles the investigating officer to conduct fresh arrest and custodial interrogation of the accused, the court noted.

The woman's lawyer, Alakh Alok Srivastava, told the court that the foreign national, who is also a yoga instructor and has been practising for the last 20 years, alleged that the accused "fraudulently took Rs 5 lakh" from the petitioner for "jointly setting up a yoga centre" promising "good returns".

She had lodged a cheating and forgery case against Singh at South Avenue police station here in 2018. The woman had become friend with the accused through social media.

"Singh had introduced himself as a great yoga guru from India and told the petitioner that he is teaching yoga to all big celebrities of India, including the Prime Minister and the President of India," the woman said adding that the accused manipulated the petitioner and started claiming that he was "madly in love with her and that he wanted to marry her".

"The accused further told the woman that she can set up her yoga training centres in India, in collaboration with him," the woman said adding that "on the insistence of the accused, she finally came to Goa in July 2018 and thereafter they visited various other places".

"On the assurances of good return by the accused, the woman invested her money for a yoga centre. The accused kept on taking money from the petitioner on one pretext or other. In total, he fraudulently took away about Rs 5 lakh from the petitioner between July 2018 and September 2018," the advocate said claiming that the accused, despite being married, repeatedly raped the petitioner on the pretext of marriage.

The Delhi High Court had on January 31 asked the city police to provide round-the-clock security to the Italian woman to avoid any untoward incidents, observing that the foreign national is getting threats from the accused.