Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Police today claimed to have cracked the mystery surrounding the firing incident at Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's ashram here, saying it was a bullet fired by a nearby farm house owner to scare away stray dogs.

The owner had fired from his licenced .32 mm revolver and one of the bullets lost velocity and landed in the ashram
premises, DGP Ajai Kumar Singh told reporters here.

"It is conclusively proved that the bullet was from his revolver", Singh said, adding, the farm owner did not have
any intention to murder anyone. The ashram was not visible from the farm house though it was located nearby across the road.

He said the farm house owner Dr Mahadev Prasad had a licence for his weapon. Stray dogs had attacked his sheep recently.

Singh said Prasad has not been arrested as no offence been made against him.

Conflicting versions had emerged about Sunday's firing, which police had described as an 'incident' and suspected that it stemmed out of an internal rivalry in the ashram. The Foundation had taken strong exception to the police version claiming the bullet was fired in the direction of Ravi Shankar's car.

It had also taken umbrage at Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's statement that the spiritual leader "may not" have been the target and the incident could be the result of a dispute between two of his disciples.

The AOL had called the statement "hasty and damaging", saying it had hurt the sentiments of millions of Ravi
Shankar's followers.