“Does a tapaswee (meditating sage) go to courts?” Bamjan asked reporters at an interaction with the media after the police took his statement in Halkhoriya forest, Bara, where he is meditating, on Sunday evening. [break]
"I abide by the law, but only the right ones. There are wrong laws too. I have done no wrong," he insisted and added, "They disturbed me while I was meditating… tried to manhandle me. I was therefore forced to beat up them.”
A group of 17 persons had lodged a formal complaint against Bamjan on Saturday morning claiming that he took them under control on Thursday when they reached the spot while looking for wild fruits and vegetables and thrashed them with an axe handle for around 22 hours before releasing them on Friday afternoon.
He also denied that he beat up them in a room as claimed by the locals. “I beat up them with my hands and not with an axe handle. The locals have lied. I have just slapped them two-three times,” he claimed.
He, however, couldn´t elaborate on how a man sustained head injury with slaps. “I tolerated when they smoked cigarettes and made noise but they climbed on the platform where I was meditating and tried to imitate me. I slapped them after they crossed all the limits,” he said.
He said the group didn´t retaliate against him and hinted that he would have used his divine powers if the locals had retaliated. “I would also have done something had they retaliated. It (divine power) could have been used had the situation arose,” he said when asked what he would have done in case of retaliation and if he had divine powers.
He also refuted the accusations that he thrashed the locals even after they apologized. “They didn´t apologize in the beginning. They started to join their hands in apology only after I started slapping them,” he claimed.
He had started six-years of penance on May 16, 2005, and has just 10 months remaining to complete his mission. He reiterated his claim that he has eaten nothing in the period.
“I have not eaten up to now. I don´t know what will transpire in the future,” he said. On future plan after completing the six-year meditation, he said: “I will share the knowledge that I have gained in this period with the world.”
Despite conceding to have beaten the locals he claimed he didn´t do so in anger. “I never get angry. I do everything with a smile. There weren´t any of my associates around and I was forced to punish them,” he reasoned. “I wouldn´t have talked to you [journalists] if I were angry,” he added.
He also refuted allegations that he slammed the locals for animal sacrifice during the Gadhimai Festival in November while beating up them. “There was no mention of Gadhimai in this incident,” he said. He had promised to stop the animal sacrifice at the festival, but did not turn up in the end averting possible confrontation.
He, however, claimed that he achieved some success in stopping the sacrifice. “I stopped it. Just 20,000 animals were sacrificed this time while it used to be hundreds of thousands. I was not completely successful due to non-cooperation of others,” he argued.
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