Who was Prem Baisa? Injection, Instagram post and ‘agnipariksha’ plea shroud preacher’s death in mystery

JODHPUR: A 25-year-old religious preacher died under mysterious circumstances at her ashram in Jodhpur Wednesday evening.

Police commissioner Om Prakash said the woman, Prem Baisa, was brought by her father and an associate in a car to a private hospital around 6pm. After examination, the hospital doctor declared her as brought dead.

The police commissioner said her family members said she was unwell for the past two days. On Wednesday, she was administered an injection by someone from a nearby chemist shop. "Immediately after the injection, her condition worsened," Prakash said.

Her father, Veeramnath, cited the wrong medication as the cause of her death, but some of her supporters doubted the father's account and demanded an investigation.

After a postmortem conducted by a medical board at the MG Hospital Thursday, the woman's mortal remains were transported to her parental village, Jasti, near Jodhpur. A large number of supporters assembled at the hospital during the postmortem, demanding a fair investigation into her death and terming it as suspicious.

A post on her official Instagram account a few hours after her death added to the suspicion. The cryptic post read, "I lived every moment for the propagation of Sanatan Dharma… I wrote letters to Adi Guru Shankaracharya and many great saints of the country, requesting a trial by fire (agnipariksha), but what did fate have in store?" The timing of the post raised the question of who posted it after her death.

The commissioner said police were interrogating the chemist and also investigating the Instagram post. "A forensic team has collected evidence and we are awaiting the postmortem report. She recently arrived from Ajmer, where she had gone for a sermon. We are investigating whom she met and spoke to in between," Prakash said.

The preacher had filed an FIR six months ago accusing her former staff of blackmail, defamation of character, and demanding Rs 20 lakh. Acting on her report, police had arrested the accused, Jogendra alias Jogaram, who used to install sound system for her sermons. On her refusal to give in to his blackmail, he had made a doctored video of her with her father and had admitted to police of nursing a grudge against her.