The Abuse Revelations by Sai

As one could predict, persons given much open attention and are accorded many of Baba's various kinds of blessing, including VIP status in the Sai movement. If and when they should change their tune, or otherwise displease Baba, as happened in the case of the author and very popular Baba-euologising 'lecturer' at the ashram, Dr. Bhatia who led the SSB Hospital Blood Transfusion Unit, they are cast into the figurative 'outer darkness' and are even threatened by Sai Baba personally. Such was the case of Dr. Naresh Bhatia, the head of the SB hospital Blood Donation Unit and a close favourite of SB. When my wife and I were at PN in 1998, Dr. Bhatia was still one of SB's favourites, as was also David Bailey. Bhatia had written a gushing book about the marvellous way SB had looked after him and his life up until then, and he was a darling of those gaping Westerners who followed his 'lectures', held under the auspices of the ashram with SB's blessing.

Dr. Bhatia's own revelations to the press revealed secrets and alleged facts about Baba as a major sexual abuser of minors. He was excommunicated and - by an unusual expedient for the ashram, which eschews any whiff of publicity about inner intrigue, this was made definite (without revealing anything about why or what he had done or said) by an official notice in Baba's official journal, Sanathana Sarathi. Rumours were spread among residents at the ashram that Dr. Bhatia had seduced female assistants at the SS Hospital, which also soon reached the author of this factual summary from friends at the ashram. The rumours remain wholly unsubstantiated.

Dr. Bhatia, who for six years was the head of the blood bank of the Sai Super Speciality hospital, is quoted in The Findings, by the UK exposé writer, David Bailey:
"Three young students from Sai Baba's junior male college were called for interview. One of them, a seven year old boy student, came out of the interview room crying. He continued to cry for two days, and was unable to eat or study.
That evening Dr Bhatia, on duty in the children's canteen, was asked to find the cause of the child's distress. He questioned and then examined the child, and found that he had been sexually penetrated, via his anus. The child was taken to Bangalore and re-examined. A second medical opinion confirmed sexual abuse.
Dr Bhatia had been involved in sexual activity with Sai Baba for six years, believing that he was serving divinity. He went to Sai Baba: "Why do you do this to such a young child when you have all of us adults and the older students to play with?"
Sai Baba's reply: "Don't bargain with God!
Soon after, five men went to Dr Bhatia's home, threatening his life with knives. He made his escape by car, fleeing to Delhi."

According to the journalist Mick Brown of the Sunday Telegraph (12 November 2000), Bhatia resigned from his post at the hospital in December 1999 and is now an administrator at a hospital in New Delhi. Mick Brown stated:

"Contacted by phone, Bhatia said that he had become a devotee of Sai Baba in 1971, at the age of 20, and that he had sexual relations with Sai Baba for "15 or 16 years". In that time, he said, he was also aware that Sai Baba had relations with "many, many" students from the college and school, and with devotees from overseas."

The Sunday Telegraph article gained much prominence and was soon republished around the world in a number of prominent dailies in other languages, Dr. Bhatia fell mysteriously silent! He has not been willing to stand forth and repeat his allegations since shortly thereafter. This case illustrates the reach of SB's power, since Bhatia will not repeat any of the massive allegations he came out with when he had been expelled from all Sai connections. He describes how his life was threatened at Puttaparti by thugs, and left for Delhi, where he took employment as a doctor. He declares that he still recognizes Sai Baba as God, the major avatar of the present aeon.

It seems most likely to any sensible, neutral observer that the likelihood is that the powerful SB forces in India have been directed towards him and have "got to him", so that he has accepted come kind of deal or compromise. When one considers the various possibilities that the Central Trust and ashram had at their disposal to silence him, it is evident that a killing would be more likely to raise world suspicion than some other expedient. Though execution was carried out against four young men in 1993, their complaints had not become publicly known and they were not in the eye of the public or world media.

Since the above was written, it is reported that Dr. Bhatia was later nearly killed by a truck in Delhi and had to fight for his life in hospital for months. One cannot but hold the suspicion that this was no ‘accident’.

Note: it has since been asserted that the 7-year old boy was several years older, and the boy was instead in the 7th grade at school.