Self-styled preacher Virender Deo Dixit wanted in rape cases has died, CBI tells court

New Delhi, Sep 29 (PTI) Self-styled preacher Virender Deo Dixit, wanted in cases of alleged rape and mistreatment of his disciples at his Rohini ashram, had died in 2023, the CBI has learnt and will now seek abatement of the trial.

Dixit, against whom an Interpol Blue Notice was issued in 2018, was allegedly on the run after the CBI registered cases against him on the orders of the Delhi High Court in 2017.

The CBI had been on his trail, with the search going up to Nepal. The agency had also announced a reward of Rs five lakh for anyone giving credible information about him.

The Hyderabad unit of the agency got the information about the death of Dixit in January 2025 which was confirmed recently, officials said on Monday, adding the court has been informed.

He was in his early eighties at the time of his demise in 2023, they said. The High Court had directed the CBI to register cases on the allegations that he had confined several women at his ashram, Adhyatmik Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya, in Rohini here.

The agency will now seek the abatement of the trial in the case in which it had filed several charge sheets, they said.

The agency had issued two Look Out Circulars on January 22, 2018 and February 22, 2019, against him. An Interpol Blue notice to locate him was also issued on the request of the CBI on March 26, 2018.

The Delhi High Court had on December 20, 2017, directed the CBI to investigate the alleged illegal confinement of girls and women in the ashram where they were kept in "animal-like" conditions behind metal doors in a "fortress" surrounded by barbed wire.

The CBI has taken over the probe into the three FIRs registered by Delhi Police at Vijay Vihar police station in Rohini by re-registering them, CBI officials had said.

Two cases were against Dixit for alleged rape and criminal intimidation, while one case is against unidentified people for allegedly obstructing the work of a high court-appointed committee which went to the ashram on December 19, 2017.

The court had asked the CBI to investigate the FIRs lodged in Delhi against the Rohini-based ashram and its founder-cum-spiritual head Dixit and the daily diary entries relating to complaints of missing girls, commission of sexual offences and even a case of suicide there. PTI ABS RT RT RT