A day after the Art of Living (AOL) Foundation was accused of grabbing land, the AOL chief Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has claimed that he is being blackmailed with a 'fabricated video of a woman'.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar urged his followers to be patient and not take law into their hands.
A don-turned-journalist Agni Sridhar had earlier alleged that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's AOL had encroached upon land that belonged to Dalits and poor farmers. (Read: NRI accuses Sri Sri Ravishankar of grabbing land)
"An extortionist cannot hide under the garb of someone helping the downtrodden. This exercise of false propagation and instigation will not work. Sridhar has threatened to malign us by using fabricated video of women and then moved on to a non-existent land issue," said Ravi Shankar.
"AOL spends crores on the welfare of the poor and can never think of doing injustice to anyone ever," Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said. "We are compassionate but are very firm in dealing with anti-social elements.
We will not budge or fall into the trap of miscreants. These tactics of threat and hiding behind fictitious stories will not work," he added.
"Incidentally, the gentleman who we purchased the land from happens to be a Brahmin and not a Dalit as Sridhar has alleged. The police should take action against such forces who spread disharmony and thrive on false propagation. We will continue to reach out to the masses with our development projects and stress-elimination programmes as we have for the last 30 years," Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said.
Prasanna Prabhu, the AOL spokesperson, said the blackmailer had started calling AOL faculty members and demanding a ransom of Rs 42 crore. "He said he would expose us by distributing videos of women from the ashram to the press."
"When we decided to file a complaint, he took a U-turn and began alleging that we are involved in land grabbing. I think he is using such diversion tactics to escape," he added.
Sridhar however says he had not mentioned any video during his discussions with AOL.
Marupadiyum Oru Kadhal Audio Launch
