MUMBAI, March 19: An Indian businessman has been arrested for allegedly raping his daughter for more than eight years, apparently on the advice of a Hindu mystic who said it would make him wealthy, police said on Thursday.

Police also arrested the man’s wife, suspected of being an accomplice, and the mystic — a tantrik or practitioner of the ancient Indian art of the occult — for allegedly raping the man’s other minor daughter.

Police said the father, a 49-year-old car parts salesman from Mumbai’s outskirts, began raping his oldest daughter in 2000, when she was 14, after he ran into financial troubles.

“The businessman approached a friend who claimed to possess tantrik powers, and the latter advised him to have sex with his daughter to prosper in life,” police officer Mukund Mahajan told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Police said that in recent months, the tantrik apparently began having sex with the businessman’s 15-year-old daughter, also for occult reasons.

The case became public after the younger daughter revealed the abuse to her grandmother and uncle, who filed a complaint on Wednesday, police officer Prakash Rane said.

The businessman and his wife, 49, were arrested on Wednesday while the tantrik, Hansmukh Bhai Rathode, 54, was arrested on Thursday, Rane said. Television footage showed dozens of angry people outside the police station trying to attack Rathode as he was brought in.

The parents have not been identified to protect the identities of their children.

The father and Rathode have been charged with raping minors, punishable by life in prison.—AP
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