Testimony of an eye-witness with insider connections

An eyewitness, Eileen Weed (aka 'Divya') who was living with Sai Baba's sister Venkamma has described the events of that night and added the following, which just shows the mentality which allowed the murders to be covered up:-

On 2. sep. 2012, at 15.10, Divya wrote:

"We all heard the next morning that SB gave the OK to kill the intruders after being strongly advised to do so, and that Janikiram was with SB then also and agreed (and someone else too, was it Joga Rao? I forgot who). We did not have much shock about it - after all, we were brainwashed with stories of Rama and Krishan, it was natural for us to accept Avatars wanted to murder the bad guys; plus, we thought, much better to avoid controversy and possible unpleasant truths (or what we thought might be lies) getting out.

I had heard the name Vishnubat a lot, because he was the kitchen help and Amma was cooking for SB. I believe it was Vishnubat who was often the one handing the carriers back to the family members after SB ate and went upstairs after his meal. Also, two people were injured in the encounter and survived, SB even went to visit them in the hospital next morning - I will have to read the account online to see what it says about that.

Also, I remember that we asked what the assailants were saying about SB as they were bound up, and Amma's grandsons assured us that none of the four said anything against SB. I still remember clearly to this day, the darting eyes of the grandson as he said that to us, and wondering if it was the darting eyes of a lie to his elderly grandmother, and wondering if they could really not be saying anything against SB, when they had broken in (what we believed at that time) to kill him? Of course, dead men tell no tales!"

What became of Non-violence and Compassion?

In the same 1993 Gurupurnima discourse quoted from above, Sai Baba continued his outright megalomaniac boasting, saying, "My purity is the root cause of the glory of my name. (Applause). It is not due to any publicity or propaganda. My all-pervading selfless love is the cause. No one can affect this pure love. I have no ill-will towards anybody. Swami has done no harm to anyone."

But most people with their heads and hearts still in the right balance would consider that – if one really knew the future – Sai's not telling his close devotees of such an awful fate he knew to be awaiting them runs counter to any reasonable kind of love and compassion and protection (which he always promised all his devotees). Instead, this self-claimed “all-powerful Lord” actually ran away while the knifings were going on and locked the escape door after him from the outside, trapping four assailants in his bedroom apartment. Nor did he lift a finger to avert it as it all took place under 'His Divine Nose', nor saying a single word to stop the shooting of the four who had long been, and still were, his devoted followers. He is known to have been consulted where he hid in his garage building attached to the temple well before the police shot down at close range in a hail of dozens of bullets the four young men who were armed only with knives, and the press reported his having said of the intruders, 'They are bound, now kill them'! This completely exposes the hypocrisy in Sai Baba with his oft-quoted aphorisms like 'Help ever, hurt never.' Sai Baba is always preaching about how thoughts, words and actions must be in accord. But his verbal support of non-violence as a human values should surely also include active help and not being an accomplice - whether passive or active - to cold-blooded murder? Nor was he willing to appear before authorities for questioning and he helped engineer the effective cover-up through many private meetings with the powerful Home Minister, his devotee S.B. Chavan.

No wonder residents and especially the foreign visitors at Prashanti Nilayam were seen to wander about with tired, worried faces, or sitting at darshan in perplexed absence of mind (if not exactly the ‘mindlessness' so strongly encouraged by this bogus God). How could the question that must have crossed their minds as to why Sai Baba did not intervene personally disappear from the thoughts of the great majority of them so soon and effectively? The intruders had all been his own students, the product of his own teachings!' No such 'demonic' doubts can be entertained by those who are – according to the flattery of their Divine Manipulator - the very grain, the fruit of humanity, the good devotees whose service has already saved the planet from catastrophe? Those who remain faithful are hard core blind-faith believers who will not think, see, or hear any unpalatable truth about Sathya Sai Baba!

Governmental connivance in the cover-up and quashing of the case

During the aftermath, when Indian Government authorities were trying to defuse the issue and cover it all up, V.K. Narasimhan was present to a conversation between the brother Mr. Janaki Ramiah and the Home Minister S.B. Chavan where they congratulated one another on having got the four alleged assailants murdered by the police and laughed saying 'Dead men tell no tales'. This shocked Narasimhan deeply, who apparently never recovered his previous somewhat troubled faith fully after that. He told me, referring to those who negotiated with the police on behalf of Sai Baba (including his brother Janakiramiah and Colonel Joga Rao) that “they did a terrible thing”. By using a hold that ashram authorities had gained over them when they allowed two murderers of a German lady to 'escape' in return for the money she was killed for in her new room in Prashanthi (about Rs. 80,000.-), they convinced the police to shoot down the four intruders, who were barricaded inside Sai Baba's bedroom apartment!

Some questionable events surrounding the murders issue

1) The refusal of the ashram and trust authorities to lodge any complaint on the six murders in Baba's quarters.

2) Suppression of the news of the murders by the police for 12 hours, of the post mortem reports until after burial/cremation and of trying to refuse access to the press to the First Incident Report (FIR), which later proved to be wholly uncorroborated and obviously false on the basis of many specific counts.

3) The secrecy of the Sathya Sai Central Trust in keeping photographers and journalists out of the ashram after the murders and in refusing to answer any questions of import concerning them either to the press or the various investigating authorities.

4) The mandatory magisterial probe and the CBI (Criminal Bureau of Investigation) reports were not completed and nothing of substance was made public, while the entire murder investigation was closed down by a confidential Government order, the remaining evidence of which is that no charges have been registered and no official report has ever appeared. The Indian and international press remained as silent as the grave!

5) Many illegal irregularities during the investigation occurred, very inadequate search of the scene of the crime; failure to question many eye-witnesses of events (hundreds of local inhabitants, ashram residents and visitors, many MBA students who entered Baba's quarters while the 4 alleged assailants were possibly still alive); non-questioning whoever it was who took the injured attendants to the hospital, and other eye-witnesses of events); the Central Bureau CID (Criminal Investigation Department) permitting the Puttaparthi police to search the ashram after expiry of their authority to do so; not clearing up totally conflicting reports of where poison was allegedly found.

6) The Prashanthi ashram authorities refused to allow the two injured attendants (A. Patley and V. Bhatt) to give evidence in any shape or form. They should have been kept under heavy security to give evidence to the CID) but - by removing him to a secret location - they also covered up the inexplicable and unexplained existence of the boy student in his early teens (Subbappaypa) in Baba's room who opened the door and gave Baba the alarm. The CID interrogated Subbappayya on two occasions, despite the ashram authorities demanding they present a valid authority to do so. Was this because sexual abuse was involved? Their report could never be delivered due to government interference!

7) Failure to secure material evidence such as large sums of money in notes, bullets fired by the police, and to conceal material evidence like photos of actual and alleged injuries, the bedding of the four assailants who were to sleep on guard at the mandir that night was systematic.

8) No explanation as to why the bodies of the guards killed were found on the ground floor, when the assailants had reportedly crept up to the 1st floor and knocked at Baba's door to deliver a supposed telegram. Nor would the investigators explain how the alleged assailants entered Baba's quarters when the door had already been bolted from inside (by either Subbappayya or by Baba?).

9) Why were the video film and colour photos' negatives and positives of the bodies and crimes scene asked for by the Puttaparthi police later impounded by them? (However, despite this, some colour prints have survived and have been published). The photos show a blood-stained lathi (police baton), pieces of rope in blood pools around two of the bodies, while the other two bodies have no blood around them, gloves lying neatly beside bodies of two who would have had no time to take them off having been shot through the head and heart at close range.

Sathya Sai Baba's self-declared knowledge and complicity


According to what the former Head of the Administration building told me a decade previously, Baba had once acted in a way I find interesting in this connection. To the one-time head of the ashram, Mr. Kutumba Rao, who received his first longed-for interview after 20 years waiting, was taken into the private room only to be told that a murderer was on the way to kill him and that he must leave the ashram immediately until further notice. He did leave at the time and was temporarily replaced by Mr. Chiranjia Rao (subsequently made a member of the Sathya Sai Central Trust). This covert obliqueness, however, is typical of Sathya Sai, of his very seldom making anything clear enough, or of clothing information in vague phrases, and very often in deceptive ambiguities. Of such arts he was truly a master.

Close servitor V. K. Narasimhan's doubts

Referring to the murders, the famous newspaper journalist, writer and editor, V.K. Narasimhan – even though under powerful pressures to conform while dependent on the ashram and Sai Baba personally - said openly on two occasions where the writer was present, and even before a small number of people, "What is the meaning now of the words 'Why fear when I am here'? They are a travesty."

The meaning can only be discovered an investigative spirit with honesty, conscience and – above all - sound independence of mind. In the presence of several persons at Sai Towers café (including myself, then the owner Mr. Padmanabhan, his business manager and the Australian Sai official Chris Parnell who was working for him on the magazine ‘Spiritual Impressions') V.K. Narasimhan said that he has questioned swami about the murder several times whose answers, he said three times loud and with emphasis, were “ not convincing!”

V.K. Narasimhan, who was present at the ashram and was himself in daily contact with Sai Baba from 1980 until shortly before his death in 2000, unburdened himself of shocking information in a lowered voice and in strict confidence to the present writer. Only after his death could I relate what I had learned (for the sake of protecting him in his very delicate and insecure position living in the ashram under Sai Baba's control).

See how V.K. Narasimhan revealed to me the true facts about the police executions - and see scans of the records I made at the time


Later important revelations:-

See the eyewitness account of the murder scene by Eileen Weed ('Divya' who was then living with Sai Baba's sister Venkamma) Sathya Sai Baba reported to have ordered executions!

See Divya's testimony on bribery by Sai Baba of his to his relatives just after the murders Sathya Sai Baba massive bribery

Links to other articles on the 1993 Prashanthi Nilayam murder issue:-

1) How I came to learn of the blackmail by Sai officials behind the police executions of four intruder devotees from V.K. Narasimhan

2) Sai Baba and brother ordered planned murder of four devotees, 1993
Shocking eyewitness/ashram insider reports on the murders and aftermath

3) Sai Baba's massive bribery of family members and other residents after the murders (hush money - Rs. 50,000.- each)

4) More concerning the 1993 murders in the Prashanthi Nilayam Temple complex

5) Interview on BBC documentary 'The Secret Swami' with V.P.B. Nair, former home minister of Andhra Pradesh during the 1993 murders

6) IAS official V. Ramnath's reported account of Vijay Prabhu and the murder attempt here

7) Excerpts from Indian newspaper reports on the murders in Sai Baba's vicinity and the cover-up

8 Review of the cover-up and what cannot be denied

9) Prabhu's involvement reported from an IAS source

10) Murder coverage in 'The Week' (India) with explanatory diagram/drawing

11) Conny Larsson's recall of his learning in Puttaparthi about the 1993 murders

12) Writ petition to the High Court - Andhra Pradesh for investigation of the murders

13) Additional evidence from an independent source