timeline-old

1990 – Lokanath stayed with a family in NJ and molested their youngest child Satya several times over a week (during that week, Satya told her mom about the abuse)

1990 – GBC Resolved: “Suspected or confirmed cases of child abuse must be reported to local government authorities for investigation and/or prosecution.” https://gbc.iskcon.org/1990

1992 – Satya’s brother-in-law told GBC member Mukunda Swami about the abuse

1993 – Instead of reporting abuse to law enforcement, per the GBC’s own Resolutions, the GBC appointed a 7-person subcommittee to investigate Lokanath’s abuse

1994 – Ravindra Svarupa pushed the victim for assurances that she would not report the abuse to law enforcement

1996 – Lokanath resumed initiating, after 2.5 year suspension (at this point he had about 400 disciples, he went on to initiate another 5,000 disciples between 1996-2021)

1998 – ISKCON formed Child Protection Office (CPO) to handle child abuse

2010 – Satya made compelling public statements re-asserting she was abused by Lokanath

2011 – Lokanath wrote admission letter in which he stated, “I sexually abused her.”

2012 – GBC secretly placed restrictions on Lokanath, prohibiting him from initiating outside of India

2017 – GBC secretly lifted restrictions that had been placed on Lokanath

1998-2021 – CPO significantly defunded, from $150,000 (1998) to $10,000 (2021)

April 15, 2021 – confidential documents of Lokanth’s child abuse were shared on Facebook which started an international discussion in the Hare Krishna community

May 12, 2021 – GBC suspended Lokanath pending a CPO investigation, then secretly changed its mind 5 days later with no explanation

July 14, 2021 – GBC set up its own panel, cutting out the CPO, to look at Lokanath’s child abuse case to determine if the CPO should handle it (panel was supposed to meet for 60 days)

To date – this is the only child abuse case that the GBC has repeatedly blocked the CPO from handling.