New Delhi: Police have told the Madras high court that as many as six people have gone missing at various points in time since 2016 from controversial spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation centre at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.
Reports on this submission, made by police on March 21, came out over the weekend in the press.
Indian Express has reported that a high court division bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and Sunder Mohan are hearing a habeas corpus petition by a man, Thirumalai, who sought the whereabouts of his brother, Ganesan, who had been missing from the Coimbatore centre since February 2023. That Ganesan was absent was informed to his brother by the Foundation itself, he said.
Thirumalai noted that the Foundation lodged a police complaint, leading to an FIR, in the same month in 2023.
The Foundation’s ‘yoga centre’ at Coimbatore is one of the largest of its outposts.
Its website says, “The large residential facility houses an active international community of brahmacharis, full-time volunteers and visitors.”
Represented by Additional Public Prosecutor E. Raj Thilak, Tamil Nadu police indicated that an investigation was ongoing into the multiple people who had gone missing – some of whom it claimed may have returned.
The bench asked police to furnish a detailed status report on this investigation by April 18.
The Foundation has called the police’s claim false.
“The news claiming that six people have disappeared from Isha Yoga Center since 2016 is totally false and baseless, debunks Isha Foundation,” it said in an official statement.
Grave allegations surround multiple centres of the Isha Foundation.
In 2022, Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, lost his cool during an interview with BBC Tamil in which he was grilled on the environmental clearance for his foundation. The News Minute had then reported that the Comptroller and Auditor General had in 2018 said that the Foundation did not have prior approval for some of the buildings it constructed in Coimbatore.
In a detailed investigation, Newslaundry found multiple instances of wrongdoing, corruption and flouting of laws in the setting up and running of the Coimbatore centre.
