Know the yoga guru Bikram Choudhury who faces rape charge from women

New Delhi: Bikram Choudhury is 67 years old and runs an international ‘hot yoga' chain.He is the founder of the Bikram school of hot yoga.He directs classes in his Bikram's Yoga College of India in San Diego, California.Choudhury has made millions of dollars out of his yoga classes. Among his fleet of cars is a Royal Daimler he said once belonged to the Howard Hughes.In the past year, he has been accused of raping, assaulting or sexually harassing women who attended his classes.One of his students recently reported that Bikram Choudhury, told her “I need to spiritually enlighten you” as he raped her.Victims of Choudhury alleged that he used his guru status to lure in women and then “crush anyone who speaks against him”.According to the reports many of the alleged rapes or sexual attacks happened at Bikram's bi-annual, nine-week retreats, where those who wish to teach the special branch of yoga must pay $11,400 to learn from the master himself.Mr Choudhury's method of Bikram Yoga, practiced at 105F (41C) heat, has become wildly popular in Britain and the US and its celebrity devotees include Jennifer Aniston, Lady Gaga and David Beckham.According to reports Choudhury treats African-American students differently than others, saying, ‘these blacks just don't get my yoga'.Victims claims that he ask female followers for massages and sexual favour.Choudhury emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and founded yoga studios in California and Hawaii. In the 1990s, he began offering nine-week teacher certification courses. Certified instructors now number in the thousands with Bikram Yoga studios all over the world. But his yoga empire is now under siege in the Los Angeles courts, where four former students and his ex-legal advisor are pursuing him for sexual abuse.He holds a copyright for the 26 poses which constitute Bikram yoga under the same theory which allows choreographic sequences to be copyrighted. Choudhury released a statement in March this year saying he was "disappointed by the false charges" .