Judge sends Indian guru to jail for 20 years in rapes

A judge on Monday sentenced a popular and flamboyant Indian spiritual guru to a total of 20 years in prison on charges of raping two female followers.

The sentences were pronounced amid intense security at a prison in the northern town of Rohtak where the guru, who calls himself Dr. Saint Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim Insan, has been held since his conviction Friday.

Defense lawyer S.K. Garg Narwana said the guru was sentenced to 10 years in each case and fined a total of 3 million rupees ($47,000).

Despite crime allegations, gurus in India hold sway

A flamboyant and hugely popular spiritual guru who was convicted of rape, triggering a deadly rampage by angry supporters, is not the only Indian sect leader to find himself on the wrong side of the law.

Like the guru who calls himself Saint Dr. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, tens of thousands of others run religious empires across the 1.3 billion-strong deeply spiritual country. A look at some of them:

Indian guru convicted of rape revered by millions

The millions of followers of the flashy Indian guru consider him the embodiment of God on Earth.

So when he was convicted of rape Friday, tens of thousands of supporters responded with fury, setting off riots that left more than two dozen dead and buses, trains and buildings set on fire. Police said calm was restored on Saturday.

When he appears in a “darshan,” or audience, once a week at his ashram in Haryana state’s Sirsa town, the guru of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect, who calls himself Saint Dr. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, makes his followers weep and clap and flatten themselves to the ground at the sight of him. The sect claims as many as 50 million followers.

Calm returns after 30 die in India riots over guru verdict

Security forces on Saturday patrolled the streets of a north Indian state where rampaging mobs left at least 30 people dead and more than 250 others injured, after a court declared a quasi-religious sect leader guilty of raping two of his followers.

Authorities lifted the curfew in the town of Panchkula, the main trouble spot, after the night passed relatively peacefully and the area was cleared of protesters, said police officer Pradeep Kumar.

On Friday, mobs set fire to government buildings and attacked police and TV journalists in the town, smashing the windshields of news vans and breaking broadcast equipment.

3 detained after Dalit law student raped, murdered in India

Police detained three men for questioning Tuesday in the rape and murder of a law student whose body was found mutilated in southern India, officials said.

The case has drawn comparisons to the deadly 2012 gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus that sparked widespread outrage and nationwide protests demanding an end to the widespread sexual assault and abuse of women across India.

Minor convicted in India gang rape released after 3 years

A man convicted as a juvenile in the fatal 2012 gang rape of a young woman aboard a moving bus in India's capital ended his three-year term in a reform home Sunday, as angry protesters demanded that he remain in detention.

The man was short of his 18th birthday when he and five others brutally attacked the 23-year-old woman in a case that shocked India, where sexual violence against women is rampant.

Police arrest 2 teens in rape of toddler in Indian capital

Police arrested two teenagers Sunday for allegedly raping a toddler in New Delhi, in the latest incident of sexual violence against a young child in the Indian capital.

Police said they questioned more than 250 residents of the western Delhi neighborhood where the 2 1/2-year-old girl was raped and left bleeding in a park Friday evening.

The two 17-year-old boys were arrested late Saturday, said Dependra Pathak, a top police officer.