NRI BJP activist, who received Modi in Australia, found guilty of serial rape

Dhankar, who was prominent in organising the Sydney reception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been described by Australian media as “one of the worst rapists in Sydney’s recent history”

Hyderabad: Prominent BJP activist in Australia and founding president of the Overseas Friends of BJP in Australia, Balesh Dhankar, who is also a former associate of the Hindu Council of Australia, has been found guilty of sexual attacks on five women. He was facing trial after being charged with 13 counts of sexual assaults, 17 counts of intimate recordings without consent, six counts of using intoxicating substances to commit indictable offence, and assault with an act of indecency.

Dhankar, who was prominent in organising the Sydney reception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited Australia in 2014 and boasted of his access to the PM and posted photos with Modi on his social media accounts, has been described by Australian media as “one of the worst rapists in Sydney’s recent history”.

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According to media reports, the District Court jury in Sydney’s Downing Centre on Monday found the “politically connected predator” ‘lured five women into a web of lies, paralysed them with drugs and hoarded trophies of his callous assaults’.

Dhankar, the reports said, had removed his photographs from social media and wore masks in public. But his personal website, archived online, spoke of connections to India’s elite even as his trial loomed.

Photographs on his website show him meeting Modi and speaking at NSW government events.

The reports, recounting the case against Dhankar, said when police raided Dhankhar’s CBD apartment in October 2018, they found dozens of videos of him having sex with women, many of them unconscious or struggling. The videos were sorted into folders, each labelled with a Korean woman’s name.

Dhankhar started off with a fake job ad for Korean translators posted in 2017. He then recorded conversations with women who were alone, desperate for work and new in Sydney. There was no job, no company, it was an attempt to “manipulate women”, Dhankhar agreed after a grinding cross-examination.

Dhankhar interviewed each of the women at the Hilton hotel cafe before pressuring them into dinner and wine. He would then make an excuse to go up to his apartment, where he gave them wine or ice-cream laced with sedatives, traces of which were found in the blood and hair of two victims. Dhankhar then recorded his sexual assaults using a camera hidden in his bedside alarm clock and on his phone.

Reports said Dhankhar cried on Monday as the jury foreman replied “guilty” to each of the 39 charges against him. He will face court again in May and will be sentenced later in the year, the reports added.