Nashik, March 18 A retired Merchant Navy officer was arrested in Nashik on Wednesday for allegedly raping a woman for over three years, police said.
The accused, Ashokkumar Kharat, a self-proclaimed astrologer, had several leaders from Maharashtra politics visit him over the years.
A total of 58 videos, including some objectionable clips, stored on a pendrive, have been recovered from Kharat, who used to call himself "Captain," police said.
Kharat, who is also the chairman of Shree Ishaneshwar Mahadev Temple Trust at Mirgaon in Sinnar taluka of Nashik district, allegedly sexually assaulted the 35-year-old complainant between November 2022 and December 2025.
Citing the FIR, police said Kharat would call the woman to his office located in the upscale Canada Corner area in Nashik, claiming his predictions pointed to "threats" to her husband's life. He would allegedly offer her drinks laced with sedatives and then rape her.
Kharat has been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita concerning rape and criminal intimidation, as well as the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, officials said.
Many politicians and well-known individuals had visited the astrologer in the past.
The then Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde, accompanied by his cabinet colleagues Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and Deepak Kesarkar, had met Kharat at the Mirgaon temple in November 2022.
Rupali Chakankar, the current chairperson of the Maharashtra State Commission for Women, had also visited him.
Although 58 video clips stored on a pendrive have been recovered from Kharat, a few are objectionable, police said. Many of the other videos on the pendrive feature Kharat's interactions with politicians and prominent personalities, they said.
Police said an investigation is underway.
