When Mahant Narendra Giri, president of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad at Baghambri Math in Prayagraj died by committing suicide, the incident raised many questions. In fact, in the room where the dead body of the Mahant was found hanging, he never slept in it. Apart from this, a door of the bathroom attached to that room also opens outwards. In such a situation, despite being locked from the inside, anyone can get out of that room. The mystery of Mahant’s death is yet to be solved.
The hanging body of Mahant Narendra Giri was found in the room just opposite the meeting hall in the Math premises. It is said that the Mahant’s bedroom was on the first floor of the Baghambareshwar Mahadev temple. After the death of Mahant Narendra Giri, the Peethadheeshwar of Baghambari Math, who was the President of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, asked the court to open the room and handover the Math belonging to Baghambari Math.
Everyone was shocked when CBI found two bags containing Rs 3 crore rupees, many notes were found in a drawer of the bed on which the Mahant slept. This is the room which was sealed by the CBI in the presence of five people four days after Mahant’s death. Even a day before the death of the Mahant, the matter of bringing a huge amount from Haridwar to the Math has not been hidden from the police officers to the priests of the Math. The links of Mahant’s death also seem to be connected with these notes because all the cameras covering the way out through Vicharanand Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya located in the rear side of his room were found faulty that day.
From the same room, Mahant Narendra Giri got down on 20 September 2021 after 11 o’clock in the day for a meal and went to wait for someone in the visitor’s room. More than 15 cameras from his room to the visitor’s room and the surrounding premises were found switched off that day. Monitor control of these cameras was also in the Mahant’s bedroom. From the visitor’s room of the Baghambari Gaddi Math to the Mahant’s bedroom, the mystery of death has remained entangled.
It is being said that the secret of this mysterious death of this mahant is also the HD cameras installed behind the monastery from his bedroom. On the basis of the footage received from that day, it has been learned so far that Mahant was seen descending from the stairs of his room along with his close servant Dhananjay. For the last time he was seen going towards the visitor’s room and the sevadar descending the stairs behind him was seen going towards the Havan Kund behind the Math.
After a thorough investigation of Mahant Narendra Giri’s room, the items of which the CBI had made a list were sealed in the presence of five people. Apart from two CBI officers, the names of Mahant Ravindra Puri, president of Akhara Parishad and secretary of Niranjani Akhara, Amar Giri, administrator of Bade Hanuman temple and Balbir Giri, the current Peethadheeshwar of Baghambari Math, are included.
Huge amounts of cash, jewellery and property-related documents were recovered from the sealed rooms of Mahant Narendra Giri – a year after his death – at Baghambari mutt, when it was opened by a three-member Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team. A senior officer privy to the probe disclosed that around Rs 2.5 crore was recovered along with documents related to property, and jewellery. The whole act was also video graphed by the CBI team. The rooms were opened on the plea of Mahant Balbir Giri who had moved court demanding that all the property and cash inside the mutt is not the case property and hence must be returned.
The court had passed the order following which the CBI team in presence of ACM (III) Abhinav Kanojia, ACM (IV) Ganesh Kumar and police circle officer (IV) Rajesh Yadav along with a bank officer took out the cash, jewellery and handed it over to the mutt authorities. To recall, on September 20, Mahant Narendra Giri, 62, the president of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (ABAP), was found dead at Shri Mutt Baghambari Gaddi in Prayagraj. Thereafter, the UP government had recommended a CBI probe into the death of the mahant. After a month of investigation, CBI filed a charge sheet, stating that Anand Giri, Adya Tiwari and Sandeep Tiwari circulated objectionable audio defaming the reputation of the late mahant and mounted on him immense pressure, mental and psychological, forcing him to end his life. The three were booked under the charges of abetting suicide.
Mahant Narendra Giri was living in such grave mental trauma due to the threat and fear created by Anand Giri, Adhya Prasad Tiwari and Sandeep Tiwari that he was compelled to die by suicide on September 20 at Baghambari Math in Prayagraj, according to the charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on November 20. Although Mahant Narendra Giri was under psychological pressure for months, a threat by Anand Giri to circulate purported objectionable videos and audios of the Mahant and a woman triggered him to take the extreme step that day “to avoid defamation and insult in the eyes of society, his followers and devotees”, added the charge sheet, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT.
The threat was first issued by Anand Giri on May 23 during a call between him, Mahant Ravinder Puri of Niranjani Akhara (Haridwar) and Narendra Giri. The call was supposed to iron out differences between Anand Giri and the Mahant over his expulsion from Baghambari Gaddi and Bade Hanuman Temple for alleged misappropriation of funds and continuing to maintain close ties with his family, which is against the tradition of a sanyasi. The Mahant had also removed Adhya Prasad Tiwari and his elder son Dilip Tiwari as priests of the Bade Hanuman temple and took back a flower shop inside the premises, run by Tiwari’s younger son, Sandeep Tiwari.
