Mystery deepens over Bhaiyyuji Maharaj ‘suicide’

Bhopal: Self-styled godman Bhaiyyuji Maharaj has perhaps carried all clues to his “suicide” death to his grave. Police probe into the sensational incident in his sprawling bungalow in Indore in Madhya Pradesh on June 12 seems to be heading nowhere so far.

“Our probe into his suicide death yielded more puzzles than clues to ascertain the cause of his ending life abruptly”, a senior police officer who was a part of special investigation team (SIT) constituted to unravel the mystery over his alleged suicide death told this newspaper.

“In death, in fact, he has turned out to be a mysterious person. It seems he had scripted his death meticulously to ensure the riddles surrounding his death remain unsolved forever”, he observed.

The self-styled spiritual guru had deleted all massages and call details in his cell phone before he triggered the British-made Webley and Scott automatic pistol, his prized possession, to kill himself in the room of his daughter Kuhu, he loved the most in the world, in his palatial bungalow, to ensure that all his “secrets” are cremated along with him.

Sleuths were shocked and surprised to find the “furious” pace at which he was working on “something” either to wriggle himself out of a “helpless” situation or to bury his secrets into oblivion after finding him in a position of no return before firing the bullet in his head.

The last 24 hours of his life must have been the most horrible period he had ever encountered, leaving him no choice but to embrace death, preliminary probe has indicated.

He had talked to the in-charge of his Pune ashram Amol Chavan  between 12.26-12.40 in the afternoon of June 11, a day before his death, while he was on his way from Indore to Pune to pick up his daughter who was studying there.

He had asked his driver and one of his orderly accompanying him in the car to move out when he was talking to Amol on his cell phone.His call to Amol was preceded by five calls from his second wife Arushi Sharma. Soon after the call with Anmot, Arushi again called him.

Call records of his cell phone have revealed that she had called him 10 times between 2.37-3.50 pm on the day. This followed eight calls to him by Amol.

He had appeared pensive then and ordered his driver to return to Indore cancelling his Pune trip midway.

 “He seemed to be torn between his second wife and his 17-year-old daughter from his first wife. His daughter could never accept his second marriage,” a woman police officer comprising the SIT disclosed.

Kuhu’s mother died in 2015, leaving her completely shaken. She was opposed to the spiritual guru’s idea of going for second marriage.

Both the women used to fight over silly matters, leaving Bhaiyyuji Maharaj distressed often, police said quoting his family members as well as servants in the house.

In the evening on June 11 at 7.59 pm, he had a long chat with his close confidant and real estate businessman Manmit Arora, who resides in  Silver Spring colony.

Call records indicated they had talked for 118 seconds at an unearthly hour of 2.29 am. Soon after their talk, Bhiayyuji had deleted the call records and messages in his cell phone before switching it off.

It appeared he wanted to keep his daughter away from his second wife by sending her to a college in London, one of the investigators said.

Police was about to close the case considering that his suicide death was caused by apparent stress linked to his family discord, as indicated in his purported suicide note.

But, the course of investigation has changed when police recovered a second note in which he had declared his trusted aide Vinayak, curiously not his second wife or daughter, as sole custodian of his properties which ran into nearly `1,000 crores.

Investi-gations later have found lack of transparency in some of his businesses and sources of investments into them and also involvement of some suspicious people in his yet-to-surface businesses. “Misapp-ropriation of crores of rupees by some of his aides running his trusts and ashrams has come to light. Curiously, he appeared not inclined to take them to task,” said a police source.

Besides, we have found that a select few people have become very rich in a short span of period after coming in contact with him, he said.

“They have come under the radar as we are trying to dig out sources of investments in these businesses. We also want to know if influential people are involved in any of his probable opaque businesses,” a police officer said, requesting anonymity.

“It is slowly coming out that the spiritual guru wanted to hide a lot of things as far as his businesses are concerned and shield a lot many people,” he hinted.

The police is also not ruling out the possibility of his being blackmailed by some people.

“We are probing all angles such as if he was subjected to mental harassment from any quarters, besides the family discord to find out the trigger of his suicide,” Indore city superintendent of police Manoj Ratnakar told this newspaper.

He had set up ashrams in several parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and owned trusts, involved in social welfare and extending help to farmers and the poor and orphan children particularly of unwed mothers and born out of rapes.

The godman, born as Uday Singh Deshmukh at Shujalpur in Shajapur district in Madhya Pradesh in 1968, was the youngest of four siblings (two brothers and two sisters). He hailed from a very poor family and used to help his father in cultivation in his village.

He married his first wife Madhvi and the couple was blessed with a daughter (Kuhu). He later landed a job in a cement company. He quit the job to have a brush with the glamour world of modelling.

It has still remained a mystery as to why he chose to quit modelling and take a plunge into spiritual world later.

His fascination for glamour, however, never petered out even after he turned a spiritual leader. He had gone on a spree of buying luxury cars (all white), watches and jewels besides deciding to marry for the second time, a step that was allegedly not liked by his daughter Kuhu. He had rubbed shoulders with many influential politicians, cutting across political lines, from Maharashtra and MP.

He had shot to limelight when he brokered peace between the then Manmohan Singh government and anti-graft crusader Anna Hazre leading to the social activist ending his fast in 2011 at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi.