Children as young as four were starved, tortured and drugged, besides being subjected to “horrific” sexual and physical abuse, at Satyananda Yoga Ashram, Australia’s oldest ashram founded by an Indian, a public hearing into the sexual abuse case heard on Wednesday.
“I was forced to expose my genitals to ashram members and drugged with morphine for minor ailments,” a former child resident, given the pseudonym APK, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She said she witnessed the torture of children as young as four after she moved to the ashram with her family when she was nine in 1978.
The commission heard that Akhandananda, who established the ashram in 1974 and died around 17 years ago, was a serial sex abuser and forced child residents to perform depraved acts for his own gratification. Eleven children were abused by Akhandananda during the 1970s and 1980s.
