Mathura: Each morning in Radha Kund, on the outskirts of Mathura, unfolds to the rhythm of chants, temple bells and the sight of sadhus. But these days, one name disrupts the religious atmosphere. Mention “IIT Baba”, and conversations turn animated—with the man once addressed respectfully by locals as “Babaji” now simply termed “ladka”, a boy.
At tea stalls, temple courtyards and sweet shops, conversations swirl around the Odiya engineer-turned-preacher Abhishek Mishra, 29, arrested last week for allegedly using spirituality to lure young followers and sexually exploit women.
The scandal has shaken Radha Kund, where Mishra built a following among engineering students who abandoned college studies, jobs and families to join him. He titled himself as Adikarta Narayan Das.
Mishra’s life is cut out from the average Indian dream—cracking the tough JEE engineering exam and getting a seat in an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the one in Roorkee for him. This month, however, he ended up in a Mathura jail after a nursing student from Chhattisgarh lodged a rape complaint against him on 25 May.
Mishra exhorted his followers to “reject the corporate rat race”, preached the Bhagavad Gita and gave sermons on YouTube and in person to engineering students from IIT and National Institutes of Technology (NIT) from inside a 167 sqm under construction ashram in Radha Kund.
But not a lot of people know him. Neighbours ThePrint spoke to said they would often greet each other by saying “Hare Krishna”, and that was it.
Police officers investigating the matter said Mishra had created a following of engineering graduates, dropouts and those employed in engineering jobs and “brainwashed” all of them.
Speaking to ThePrint over phone, the mother of the complainant against Mishra said her twin daughters had fallen prey to Mishra and when she visited his ashram, she found multiple young men and women there who appeared “brainwashed”.
“There were young engineering students who had quit their studies and jobs, leaving without informing their parents, to settle down in Mathura. I knew this was unsafe for my child, and confronting Mishra was difficult. He often misbehaved. I was scared.”
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‘I lost my daughter to this fraud’
While no other complaint has yet been lodged against Mishra, the one registered with the police is from one of two twin sisters, Kavita and Sarita (names changed) from Chhattisgarh, aged 22.
Their father is employed in the private sector while the mother is a school teacher. Kavita scored 98% marks in Class XII, cleared the JEE exam and got admission into NIT Raipur.
“We are very simple people and this was a dream come true for us. I wanted my daughter to become an engineer,” the mother said. But last year, while still in college, Kavita she got in touch with Mishra through social media and they became friends.
“My daughter told me she has to leave Chhattisgarh for an internship in Mathura and would stay at Mishra’s ashram. I found that odd. After much convincing, she pressured us to take her there,” the mother said.
At the Radha Kund ashram, she said she saw multiple young men and women residing there.
According to the mother, after shifting to the ashram, Kavita wouldn’t talk to her parents for months. Her sister, Sarita, a nursing student, subsequently visited Mathura to celebrate her birthday with her twin.
Sarita—who is not a disciple of Mishra and later lodged the complaint against him—found out that her sister had been “brainwashed”. During the birthday celebration, according to her complaint, Mishra gave her milk laced with intoxicants and she lost consciousness. He then sexually assaulted her.
The mother told ThePrint that she made multiple attempts over several months to get in touch with Kavita but she was “brainwashed to a point where she thought I was destroying her life”.
“She told me she was leaving her education and would settle down in Brij. She would never come back. Every single phone call felt like a nightmare. I have lost my daughter to this fraud baba.”
When the mother visited the ashram, she said she saw the young men and women there circling around Mishra. They would listen to everything he said and do as he commanded. “They called him prabhuji (god)”.
Following the harrowing ordeal spanning nine to ten months and the assault on Sarita, the family filed a complaint against Mishra and an FIR was registered in late May. Kavita has returned home following his arrest.
“My daughter is in denial. She doesn’t talk to us. But we have got her admitted at a rehab centre, and are hoping she would get better. I want to enrol her in a college, and then motivate her to give government exams. I will make sure my daughter’s life doesn’t end here,” her mother said.
‘Brought shame to sadhu community’
At the mention of Mishra, a look of what appeared to be disgust settled on the face of his immediate neighbour, a sadhu.
Speaking to ThePrint on the condition of anonymity, he said that both his house and Mishra’s ashram have been under construction for some time, and that when he scolded Mishra over some disturbance, he brought a group of boys and an argument ensued.
For the neighbour, the incident was enough to never speak to him again.
“There were unruly young girls and boys at his residence. They were rude. I did not want to engage with them because I’m here for a larger purpose, but I had been suspicious about the activities going on there. What Mishra has done has brought shame to our sadhu community. This is disgusting and none of us want him back,” he added.
For Guddu Chaudhary, owner of a tea shop barely a few metres away from Mishra’s ashram, the scandal has given the “holy town” of Radha Kund unsavoury headlines.
Every morning, people gather at his shop, which ThePrint visited, to discuss the updates in Mishra’s case. “What are the police doing now?” one asked. “He is still in jail, right?” said another. Chaudhary opened Amar Ujala newspaper and proceeded to read out the latest on him.
Even at the Kund or pond central to the town where pilgrims take a holy dip, the shopkeepers expressed anger.
A woman who has a flower shop adjacent to the main gate said: “What a fraud… he would come with his followers and a mic and speakers and give sermons and dance around… and would come with multiple women. We thought this was with good intention. Whom do people trust now?”
The case details also reached the nearby Manipuri Sri Gopalji Mandir. Acharya Nandodas, who has been a priest there for the last 22 years and also from Odisha, said what had happened was wrong. “People bring shame to our community.”
Radha Kund is a popular destination located near the pilgrimage site Govardhan Parvat. The town is dotted with temples, big and small and ashrams, while priests and sadhus roam around. People of the town refer to themselves as ‘Brijwasi”.
What has changed in the last five years is the influx of outsiders, the locals said. People from across India have managed to buy land and build their own ashrams in the town. While this has brought in money, the residents rued that “it is also taking away our jobs”.
As Superintendent of Police (Rural) Suresh Chandra Rawat put it: “Mathura has a floating population, and is also a popular destination.” He said the police keep an eye on lodges, dharamshalas and hotels—to check IDs of pilgrims, but most visitors are always on the move.
‘Leave corporate rat race’
ThePrint visited Mishra’s ashram where he had lived for approximately six years. The police said it was built by the money he earned while working at a Mumbai-based MNC.
The main hall of the building smelt of roses and led into multiple smaller rooms. A double door fridge and washing machine were kept in the premises and a speaker, mic and dholak were also visible. Mattresses were placed inside the rooms for the disciples to sleep on. Multiple rupee notes lay strewn around.
Mishra runs a YouTube channel called ‘Radha Kripa Amrita’ through which he broadcasts sermons in both Hindi and English.
Police officers investigating the case earlier told ThePrint that Mishra is from IIT Roorkee’s 2017-2021 mechanical engineering batch and hails from Bhubaneshwar. His followers included youth from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.
A police officer said he used social media to not just build a following but to identify and target young women, particularly those from engineering background. He would establish contact with them when they liked or commented on his videos.
“He would then manipulate them into cutting ties with their families and moving in with him. Once the women were under his influence, he would propose a Gandharva Vivah (the ancient Indian equivalent of a modern love marriage).”
“They would find his videos viral on social media platforms. Mishra maintained a script. He would talk about how he was also part of the rat race once—to crack JEE—one of the toughest engineering exams, and get into one of the top IITs, and then get a job offer.”
“Mishra himself got a Rs 20 lakh job offer. He worked for some time but then left. He, too, was inspired by spiritual godmen and believed he could change the world,” said the officer.
To “entice” the youth, said the police, Mishra would tell them he left his job after he “discovered ISKCON (the Hare Krishna movement). He told them that life is more than a 9 to 5 corporate job, and that people should come to Brij and stay here”.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)