Padma awardee monk summoned by Bengal police in rape case

Jun 30, 2025 07:36 PM IST

Kolkata/Berhampore: Bengal’s Murshidabad district police on Monday served a summon notice to 2025 Padma Shri awardee Swami Pradiptananda, a Bharat Sevashram Sangha monk popularly known as Kartik Maharaj, asking him to appear at the Lalbagh police station by 10 am on Tuesday for questioning in the rape case filed against him last week on the basis of a complaint lodged by a local woman.

“Swami Pradiptananda is not here. I will go through the papers and inform him,” said Swami Anirbanananda, another monk from the Bharat Sevashram Sangha’s Beldanga ashram after receiving the notice.

Swami Pradiptananda is in charge of the Beldanga ashram. He shared dais with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Bengal leaders such as Suvendu Adhikari several times in recent months. In May 2024, chief minister Mamata Banerjee publicly accused him of helping BJP in the then ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The monk sent a legal notice to Banerjee demanding an unconditional apology but she stuck to her allegations.

The Lalbagh police station registered the rape case on June 26 and additional superintendent of police Raspreet Singh said an investigation was underway. The monk, however, was not questioned till Sunday.

Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and his party colleagues have alleged that the Trinamool Congress was trying to frame the monk with trumped up charges.

“The veracity of the charges should be investigated first. Kartik Maharaj is being framed by TMC,” Majumdar said.

The complainant has accused Swami Pradiptananda of raping her repeatedly between 2012 and 2019 by promising her a job at a school run by the Sangha. In the complaint letter, a copy of which was seen by HT, she alleged that two women from the ashram forcibly took her to a private nursing home in 2013 to undergo an abortion.

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The woman also claimed to have talked to Swami Pradiptananda over the phone on June 12 and alleged that two men sent by him threatened her the following day and asked her never to contact the monk again.

Police served the summon notice amid rising protests in Bengal over the alleged June 25 gangrape of a 24-year-old student inside the South Calcutta Law College by one former and two current students who have been arrested.

The accused were found to be active workers of the students’ wing of the ruling party.

Dissociating itself with the three accused, TMC targeted BJP saying the fact-finding team it sent to the college on Monday should have talked to Swami Pradiptananda as well.

“The BJP sends fact-finding teams everywhere but it is silent on Kartik Maharaj. Why don’t they send one to Murshidabad and get the facts from the rape victim,” minister Shashi Panja told the media.

The BJP has been alleging since last week that executives of I-Pac, the company hired by TMC to formulate election strategies, had made the Murshidabad woman file false charges against the monk.

On Monday, TMC circulated a video purportedly showing the woman. Her face was digitally blurred.

“I don’t know what I-Pac is. I contacted a journalist to discuss my ordeal. He advised me to seek legal help. No political party is involved in this,” the woman could be heard saying in the video.