Biranavan Tharmaratnam,  Australia  (posted on Sai Petition net as a comment - 15.5.2005 18:26:43 - from bana2210@hotmail.com) Im a Sri Lankan Male living in Australia.

Im not a devotee of Sai Baba myself but many members of my family are. Some have been life-long devotees. As a child i grew up being taught to believe in Sathya Sai Baba and to pray to him when i was feeling down etc. But i was always a rebellious child and i couldn't see how a this man could be god. As i grew up i started to watch magic shows and realised Sai Baba's tricks were nothing special, and i just couldn't believe all my relatives actually believed the so-called "miracles" of Sai Baba.

During my teens i saw the various documentaries about Sai Baba and this i thought would be enough to convince my relatives at least to start asking some questions about Sai Baba. But they were living in self denial. And just wouldn't believe any of it, and said the reporters wanted to discredit SSB. To me this was really scary, these people were accountants, bankers and engineers and the thought that they could be so utterly brainwashed was really depressing.

Now i am 20 and i cannot stand to see what Sai Baba is doing. If the allegations are true then my family has been worshiping a paedophile and a conman. Even now they are teaching their kids to worship him. Its sickening. And also something must be done to save the children of India from this menace. He is creating a culture of paedophilia in a country where there is not enough law enforcement officials/power to counter any underage prostitution and paedophile rackets. He is turning these boys he abuses into future paedophiles.If Sai Baba is innocent then he and the Indian Government have nothing to lose by opening a investigation into Sai Baba's activities and his financial activities.

And there are a lot of deluded devotees of Sai Baba on the Internet who are trying to discredit the accusers of Sai Baba and therefore stop any investigation of him. So far they seem to be failing miserably. But the thing i don't understand is why are they so against an investigation if they believe Sai Baba to be innocent? And why is Sai Baba depriving his devotees of outside sources of information, such as the media and the internet? I thought one of the key principles of his teachings/ideology was to seek the truth.

The following is a email i sent to Gerald Moreno owner of http://www.vishvarupa.com/Fair-Is-Fair/

Dear vishvarupa.com You sir/madam are guilty of this:http://skepdic.com/selectiv.html

First of all i'd like to make it clear to you that i'm not a Sai Baba devotee and i never was in the past. But various members of my family are Sathya Sai Baba devotees.For me Sai Baba's "miracles" are not the problem. Its very clear to any rational person that these are nothing but cheap magic tricks. And there is enough evidence to prove this, some of which is on your site. If Sai Baba wants to gain more supporters by using magic tricks and deception then i say shame on you to the people who actually fall for it. But the reason i wanted Sai Baba investigated is the allegations of sexual abuse, corruption and murder. The Indian government doesn't even want to investigate Sai Baba's organisation. Their reason being that they believe the allegations against him are false. Their evidence... that's what their heart tells them to do or Sai Baba is not capable of doing such things. This, in my opinion, is absolutely ridiculous. If Sai Baba is not capable of doing such things why cannot the Indian government openly investigate Sai Baba and his organisation? What have they (the Indian government and Sai Baba) got to lose?I came to your site thinking i would be able to find a rational counter argument and evidence to refute the claims made by sceptics and ex devotees. While i found some parts did provide valid evidence and rational thought.i.e your argument in Video Clip 11 Part 2. And also the common sense that statements from anonymous people cannot be used as evidence (which everyone should know anyway)..

I found for the most part your site to be a red herring.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi For example for your argument against the Testimony from ex-devotee: Said Khorramshahgol. You do not have any evidence against Said, so you try to discredit him by claiming he's mentally insane. "I'm sorry, but anyone who spams any site over 20 times has mental issues. I have never heard of anyone spamming any site from 1,000 - 3,000 times!"

I suppose you're a qualified psychiatrist now? And have you considered that he might've been trying to bring the server down with a DoS attack by spamming? This whole episode confuses the reader and takes the focus away from the question of whether Sai Baba is guilty of paedophilia and sexual abuse.Also you point out that Dr. Bhatia, why did he leave? is sent by a anonymous person and therefore cannot be proved. Thereby making that article invalid.  Then you go on to compare Mick Brown's interview with Dr. Bhatia with a article you have already proved is invalid.

"The anonymous story says Dr. Bhatia claims that he had sexual relations with SSB for 6 years. In the story related by Mick Brown, Dr. Bhatia allegedly said he had sexual relations with SSB for over 15 years". Again you try to discredit someone in 'Did Sathya Sai Baba influence the judiciary in 1996'?. Instead of investigating the article you make defamatory statements against Basava Premanad."this article says Basava Premanad is an "investigative journalist". This is simply untrue. Every single site that talks about Basava Premanand is completely mute when it comes to his qualifications and credentials. He belongs to a rationalist group, a magicians group and is said to be an amateur magician and rationalist. That's it. The silence in regards to Basava Premanand's education might have to do with the fact that he did not get one: http://77.170.120.22/ex-baba/engels/shortnews/barrypremanandgurubuster.html Basava Premanand was thrown out of school at the age of 12 due to a political dispute in which his parents refused to fill in a religion or caste on his school application form. Consequently, Basava Premanand was home taught. One day, Basava Premanand broke a mercury thermometer and hid it under his bed on an aluminium plate, exposing himself directly to toxic mercury fumes (which can cause psychological disturbances). Despite his father being knowledgeable in science, Basava Premanand’s father ordered him to wash the plate vigorously, exposing him, once again, directly to mercury. Basava Premanand supposedly experimented many times with mercury, as he claims that aluminium reacting with mercury and moisture produce aluminium oxide ash (vibuthi). " What does it matter if he had a proper education or not? Do you have evidence to prove that school educated people have better investigatory skills than home schooled or uneducated? and What does all of this have to do with disproving the article?

More defamatory statements;"This is a review from Basava Premanand. Any review from Basava Premanand is bound to be deeply stained and shaded by his atheistic, rationalistic and sceptic mentality. I have not found any article written by Basava Premanand that deals strictly with facts and figures. He mixes truth with untruth and tries to pass it off as "scientific" and "rational". "

Where is your evidence to back up these claims might i ask? On Study of SB's Claims and Journey to SB and my personal experience you claim that The Article is False and has No Proof to Support It.Just because the link doesn't work does not meant the article is false and has no claim to support it. The fact that you couldn't find a different source for the article proves how sloppy your research is.There is so many more things i could point out but im afraid i do not have the time.

So in summary you claim your site is dedicated to finding the truth and unravelling the deception of works that are critical of Sai Baba. But in reality your entire site is dedicated to confusing the reader, shifting attention away from the allegations against SSB and defaming persons who are critical of SSB. None of which has anything to do with the truth. And you don't even do a good job of it, your attacks against authors of critical works lacks evidence.You yourself admit you are engaged in selective thinking (or as you call it one-sided thinking) and your justification for it is the Anti SSB sites do it so why cant I? Sounds to me like something a 10 year old child would say. So i ask you why i should take you seriously?

Even in your disclaimer you say "All the material on these pages are the sole and original opinions of me". Opinions! Not fact, not evidence but opinions. And this also indicated to me that you have no other sources to back up most of the evidence that you present on your site. Thank you for your time.

PS Im not affiliated with Exbaba or any of the other sites critical of SSB. Im just someone who does not want his family to have faith in a false god, conman and a criminal.