Inside Captain Baba’s web of lies

In a mango farm in a village near Nashik, a well became the unlikely stage for a carefully designed miracle. Here, police say, ‘astrologer’ Ashok Kharat (67) made remote-controlled plastic snakes emerge from concealed pipes on amavasya (new moon) nights to convince people he had supernatural abilities and power over real reptiles. A few hundred metres away, behind high walls and an ornate gate, is his farmhouse, where officials suspect several women who came seeking advice and blessings were sexually abused.
The well, farmhouse, a nearby temple and an airplane hangar-sized ceremonial hall — all part of a 30-acre ‘ashram’ in Mirgaon, 60 km from Nashik — are now under scrutiny as police probe a man whose influence ran so deep that politicians washed his feet and businessmen paid crores for rituals in forests across continents.