Gulzar Ahmed Bhat, who would go by the name ‘Syed Gulzar’, has been booked under section 376 (rape).
Sources say four girls, all victims, complained to the police that Gulzar indulged in sexual activities with them at his seminary in Khansahib area of Budgam district.
According to the girls, the fake dervish would quote sayings in Arabic to justify his sexual activity with them.
“He would tell them that having sex with him was necessary to purify them of all evil,” a police officer told Freepress.
He said medical examination of the girls confirmed rape.
Gulzar, who often gave advertisements in newspapers claiming to be a Sufi, ran a residential institution for girls which offered a two-months course in Islamic studies.
Moulvi Muhammad Amin, the whistle-blower in this case, says the fake preacher would manipulate verses of the Quran to motivate the girls into sex. He alleges that Gulzar has so far raped nearly 200 girls at the hostel.
“He would tell them that he receives divine knowledge and that all the earlier saints had prayed for his birth,” Amin, who is the president of the International Khatm-e-Nabuwat Movement (J-K chapter), told Freepress.
Amin has appealed to ‘innocent’ people not to fall prey to these “illiterate, fake religious men.”
(Free Press Kashmir)
