Gurugram: A single-storey residence, with a partially-built first floor, stands on a street in Radha Swami Colony in Rewari town, the administrative headquarters of the Rewari district in Haryana. This house is where Balesh Dhankhar’s family lives.
Balesh Dhankhar (45), a former office-bearer of the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) in Australia, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison by a Sydney court. From the single-storey house, he shifted Down Under on a study visa in 2006 and finally settled there as an IT professional.
Dhankhar’s 70-year-old father, a former Air Force Officer who worked in the education department in Delhi for some time after his retirement, now lives in the Radha Swami Colony house with his wife, a younger son, and other family members. After April 2023, when the Downing Central District Court, Sydney, found Dhankhar guilty of the rapes of young Korean women, his wife, along with her 10-year-old daughter, shifted back to her family residence.
Dhankhar, in 2023, was convicted of the “elaborately executed, manipulative and highly predatory” rapes of five Korean women over nine months. The allegations against him included administering intoxicating substances to women on six counts, intending to rape them.
In the latest development, Dhankhar’s sentencing has come for 39 offences, including 13 counts of rape, three counts of indecent assault, and 17 counts of the intentional recording of intimate images without consent. The charges against him included luring the women with fake job advertisements, raping them, and making videos while they remained unconscious.
“An egregious sequence of planned predatory conduct against young and vulnerable women over a significant period,” the order from 7 March this year noted. All the offences took place from January to October 2018.
“In each case, the offender convinced the victim, who had responded to an advertisement on Gumtree, that he was interviewing her for a Korean language interpretation/translation job in Sydney for a genuine business that operated internationally,” the sentencing order noted. “On each occasion, the offender invited them to dinner after the interview and used a ruse to get the victims then to his residence, a studio apartment in World Square. There, the offender drugged and indecently and sexually assaulted the victims.”
In its overview of the case, the Sydney court said Dhankhar “researched and obtained suitable covert recording devices” and “drugs that he later utilised to commit the offences”, obtaining the drugs through prescriptions from medical practitioners by falsely claiming sleep problems.
The court also observed that he maintained an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of “potential employment applicant victims”, with records of their names, dates of application, gender, age, mobile number, and email address, among other information. He also kept records of his physical and intellectual assessments of the women, the dates and times of meetings with them, and what action he took or the level of sexual success he achieved with them.
What the family said
Located at Sector 3 Part-2, Radha Swami Colony is one of the poshest areas in the south-western town of Rewari, Haryana.
Speaking to ThePrint, Dhankhar’s younger brother said if the world believed that Dhankhar did what he stood convicted of, his brother would suffer the consequences of his actions.
“What else can I say? It is beyond my comprehension why the media is hounding my aged parents or our family. What have we done to deserve what we are getting?” he said, adding that even if his family gave any explanations, people were not ready to believe.
“The fact is that Balesh has become a victim of a big conspiracy. With no political backing or wealth, he attained a high place among the Indian diaspora within a short time due to his sheer hard work and positive attitude. However, this was not palatable for many,” said the younger brother. “He has become a victim of a bigger conspiracy in Australia. We only want a judicial inquiry into his case. However, we are not getting any support.”
Highlighting Dhankhar’s welfare work, the younger brother said he built several toilets in coordination with Sulabh Shauchalaya at Tajpur near Agra in Uttar Pradesh.
He also shared copies and links to some stories in The Australian newspaper in Sydney, with one headline reading, ‘Fifteen rape cases discontinued during New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling’s audit’. Pointing to the headline, he added: “Just the way the NSW Director Public Prosecution’s office audited nearly 400 rape cases of 2024, we want an audit of my brother’s cases. But, we do not know where to go and who to approach,” he said.
Asked whether the family was planning to move an appeal against Dhankhar’s conviction, his brother said it would need at least Rs 2 crore, but the family does not have the money to go for such an option. “All our hope rests on a judicial inquiry or an audit of his cases, whatever you call it, but we are completely clueless about how to make this happen,” the younger brother concluded.
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Overseas Friends of BJP
Commenting on Dhankhar’s link to Overseas Friends of BJP, the younger brother said that OFBJP, Australia, was launched in 2013. It was just ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when Narendra Modi was vying for the PM’s post for the first time.
The OFBJP’s Facebook page, crafted on 15 September 2013, describes it as a group of supporters and sympathisers of the Bharatiya Janata Party, ruling the party of India.
As outlined on the page, the organisation’s objectives are to project a positive and correct image of India and its people in the Australian and foreign media and correct any distortions in the media’s reporting of current events in India. Other objectives are to promote the philosophy of ‘integral humanism’, foster a cordial relationship between Indian and Australian people by establishing direct communication channels with local ethnic and national media and organising regular seminars on topics of mutual interest to work towards strengthening social bonds among Australian Indians, irrespective of region, religion, race, creed and colour.
Creating a think tank of mature, experienced and intelligent individuals of Indian origin to utilise their expertise and wisdom to generate new ideas that could be beneficial for the Indian community in Australia and the people of India, and working towards strengthening social bonds among Indians, and helping generate a feeling of oneness and brotherhood are also mentioned as objectives on the OFBJP page.
“All prominent members of the OFBJP, Australia, including my brother, were invited to Modi’s oath-taking ceremony in 2014,” said the younger brother.
Dhankhar’s early years
Born on 23 January 1980, Balesh Dhankhar passed his 10+2 from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Rewari, in 1998.
“He was an average student but was very active in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. He, particularly, was good in debates,” the younger brother told The Print.
One of his schoolmates, working in a Haryana government department, recalled that Dhankhar was very ‘khurafati (naughty)’ during his school days.
“One fine day, an important guest was to come to the school. A day before, he had discussed with us how to grab the guest’s attention. The next morning, he came with a tonsured head and asked the guest a question,” he told The Print. “This way, he managed to grab the guest’s attention for the rest of the time as the odd man in the class.”
Dhankhar’s younger brother, a former journalist, said: “After completing his schooling at KV, Rewari, my brother completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Application from the Indira Gandhi Open University and his Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism and Mass Communication (PGDMC) from IIMC, Dhenkanal (Odisha), in 2002.”
“Once he had completed his PGDMC, he worked with Reuters for two years before leaving for Sydney to do his Master of Information Technology (MIT) programme from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS),” said the younger brother, claiming to have himself worked with news channels for nearly five years before switching over to an administrative job in an automobile company in nearby Dharuhera. “My brother shifted to Australia in 2006. My parents then wanted me to shift to a 9-to-5 job so that I could take care of my family.”
The identities of Dhankhar’s family members and the old classmate stand protected at their request.
In Australia, Balesh Dhankhar had become a community leader before gaining notoriety for his convictions. Dhankhar had remained associated with political and cultural organisations, often advocating for bilateral ties between India and Australia.
However, his conviction for multiple rapes shattered his reputation. His case, involving extensive forensic and video evidence, became one of the most high-profile criminal trials of an Indian national in Australia, highlighting issues of consent and exploitation.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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