rediff.com: ISKCON denies charges: AFP

The global Hindu Hare Krishna sect Wednesday denied allegations of rampant sexual abuse of children in its boarding schools in India and said a $400 million lawsuit was prompted by greed.

Manmohan Krishna Das, a spokesman for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, said in Calcutta that Monday's lawsuit filed in the United States was the work of an "unscrupulous" lawyer.

Fortyfour former students of ISKCON schools filed a lawsuit in Dallas, Texas, accusing senior Hare Krishna leaders of sexual, physical and emotional torture at boarding schools spread over the US and India.

They said the alleged abuse took place during the 1970s and 1980s at ISKCON gurukuls, or traditional Hindu schools, in Dallas and other North American cities and in the holy towns of Vrindavan in northern India and the eastern town of Mayapur, where the movement is headquartered.

He said some students, who had violated strictures of Hare Krishna schools, like a ban on smoking, drugs and sex, had been expelled about 26 years ago. "Were these so-called victims sleeping for 26 years?" he said. "We are not in the least worried about the case and we will fight it out."

Das said the plaintiffs' lawyer was "unscrupulous" and had allegedly made millions by filing cases against some Catholic organisations. "This time also they want to extract money through this false and baseless case against ISKCON," he said.

Dallas lawyer Windle Turley, attorney for the plaintiff, alleged that the reported abuse in North America took place at ISKCON schools in Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington and Lake Huntington.

"We believe the facts as they are developed will reveal more than 1,000 child victims, many of whom have taken their lives or are today socially and emotionally dysfunctional," Turley was reported as saying Wednesday.

The first ISKCON school was set up in the United States in 1972 in Dallas. Branches were established in several US and Canadian cities.

The suit said children ranging from three to 18 were sexually abused, beaten and received little or no education.

"In India, ISKCON managed at least two profoundly abusive boarding schools for boys. These were the Vrindavan and Mayapur schools ... The Indian schools were among the worst offenders and abusers of minor boys," the suit alleged.

The Washington-based communications director of ISKCON told the Asian Age daily in an interview published Wednesday that there had been lapses.

Anuttama Dasa said the charges were "very vague", but added that there "had been abuse in and around our schools".

Das said the suit was also a result of punitive action taken against rich children who were expelled for tormenting peers from poor families. He said the charges were even more hurtful in West Bengal as the founder of the sect, Swami Prabhupada, was born there.

ISKCON has attracted celebrity devotees, including a scion of the Ford family, who married his wife according to Hindu rites in Detroit.

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