God-Man Keshavan Namboodiri Arrested Over Alleged Molestation of Pregnant Woman

In February 2014, Keshavan Namboodiri — the chief priest (rawal) of the Badrinath shrine in Uttarakhand, who had held the post since 2009 — was arrested by Delhi Police on a complaint of alleged molestation of a 28-year-old pregnant woman in a Delhi hotel.

According to police, the woman — whose father knew Namboodiri through business in Badrinath — was called by him to a hotel in the Mehrauli area on February 3. She went with her driver. In her complaint, she said the room smelled of liquor and had cigarette butts in it; Namboodiri asked his associate Vishnu Prasad to step out and shut the door, and then tried to inappropriately touch her. She screamed, rushed out, and reached the police with her driver's help. Both men were arrested — police told the court they were drunk at the time of arrest — and booked under IPC sections 342 (wrongful confinement) and 354 (assault on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty). A Delhi court sent them to judicial custody.

The Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee suspended Namboodiri with immediate effect pending inquiry; the committee president Ganesh Godiyal said a final decision would follow the police report. The committee later banned private one-to-one meetings between pilgrims and the rawal.

As with all such cases, what happened in that hotel room is a matter of allegation and investigation — the priest's arrest and suspension are the recorded facts. The incident shocked devotees of one of Hinduism's holiest shrines and reopened a familiar question: why do institutions keep placing unchecked trust in "god-men" instead of building systems of accountability?

Sources: Business Standard, Zee News, Hill Post (Dehradun), Daily Mail — February 2014.