A fresh case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act was slapped on Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, pontiff of a Lingayat math, following a complaint that he raped four girls, police said on Friday.
Ruling out "pressure to save" the pontiff, Home Minister Araga Jnanendra said that investigation has begun on the fresh case. He denied pressure on him over the matter. "There is no pressure at all. No one is big or small before the law," Jnanendra said.
Besides Sharanaru, who is now in jail in connection with an earlier POCSO case for sexual harassment of two girls, six others have also been named in this fresh FIR, according to police.
The new POCSO case was registered at Nazarbad police station in Mysuru on Thursday following a complaint by a 38-year old woman. In her plaint, she alleged that four girls, including her two daughters, now aged 12 and 15 years, were sexually assaulted by Sharanaru.
Six other people -- woman hostel warden, three inmates of the math and two men belonging to Mysuru -- have also been named in the FIR in connection with rape and abetment of the crime.
The complainant alleged that the pontiff of the Murugha math, Sharanaru, raped four girls at his ashram in Chitradurga, about 200 kilometers from here.
She alleged that Sharanaru raped her elder daughter for about four years ever since the child turned 11 and the younger daughter was sexually assaulted when she was 10-year old.
The 64-year old pontiff of the influential Lingayat math was arrested on September 1 for sexually harassing two girls, who were inmates of a hostel run by the math after an FIR was filed in Mysuru following intervention by a NGO, Odanadi Samsthe.