Spiritual leader Ashley Padayachee
Image: Supplied
AFTER facing serious allegations of plotting a R100 000 hit on their spiritualist Ashley Padayachee, a Chatsworth family finds relief as charges are withdrawn..
Naresh Uthamlal, 52, his wife Asha, 49, their son Saihil, 20, and their daughter's boyfriend Sohail Mohamed, 22, were charged with conspiring to kill Padayachee, 30.
They appeared in the Durban Regional Court on Tuesday.
Magistrate P Botha told the family that the charges against them were withdrawn and that they were free to collect their bail money and leave.
Naresh, Asha, Saihil, Sohail and the couple’s daughter Suhanna, 22, were arrested at their hardware store at the Crossmoor Shopping Centre on October 15, 2025.
Their attorney Priyanka Naicker said when they got to the Chatsworth police station, Suhanna was released and not charged.
Suhanna Uthamlal, from left, Sohail Mohamed, Naresh Uthamlal, his wife Asha Uthamlal, and their son Saihil Uthamlal.
Image: Yoshini Perumal
The four were granted bail of R3,000 each after spending 18 days in Westville Prison.
The alleged plot against Padayachee, head of the Shallcross Shree Kali Amman Kovil, was believed to have stemmed from a dispute over a house that Padayachee claimed the Uthamlall family had verbally gifted to him.
Speaking to POST after the case on Tuesday, Asha said after their arrest, they was shunned by relatives and the community.
She claimed that Padayachee had extorted money from her and her family, which led to their relationship turning sour.
“After a brief court appearance in the Chatsworth Magistrate’s Court last year, I was hospitalised and I was in a coma for nine days. After we were released on bail, we had to hang our heads in shame and walk in the community.
“People looked at us as if we were killers and bad people. We were named and shamed, and in the eyes of the community, we were guilty,” Asha said.
Naresh said the case against them had negatively impacted his businesses and his “good name” in the community.
“We became outcasts. Our names were tarnished. Clients stopped doing business with us and we suffered huge losses since these allegations surfaced.
“We are happy that our good names, which were tarnished, can be finally cleared. We had lost hope in the justice system after our arrest, but the fact that the matter never made it to trial and the charges were withdrawn gives us hope again. We are glad that we can put this chapter behind us and move on from this,” he added.
The couple said they met Padayachee in 2020 after their daughter Suhanna needed spiritual help.
They claimed that Padayachee had taken large amounts of money from them for different rituals, after he led them to believe that they would become ill and die if they did not get spiritual intervention from him.
“We initially went to him to pray over my daughter. After forming a relationship with him, he became a close family friend. We were devotees at his temple and would donate large amounts of money to the temple out of good faith.
“We then got to know his family. On one occasion, he asked us for R16,000 and said that I was sick and that he needed to slaughter an ox at the graveyard so that I would not die.
“I was sick and my husband could afford to, so he transferred the money to the him. A few months later, he said that my husband was sick and he needed to conduct the same prayer to save my husband. We gave him another R16,000 to slaughter another ox. Again, we never saw the ox and did not witness the prayer,” Asha said.
She claimed that Padayachee continued to make requests for cash for prayers, despite them willingly offering to pay for prayers and rituals for festivals.
“When his wife was pregnant, we felt that we could afford to let them live for free in our house in Shallcross. We were close family friends by then.
“When he charged us R5,500 for three bottles of water he claimed was from India, I became suspicious as I found the same bottles of water for R45 each at a local shop in Chatsworth.
“During one of the prayers, he told us to give all our money to the temple and we will win R14 million in the casino. We stopped giving him money. We then found out that the house we had told him he could live in was being demolished and refurbished. We were shocked. He became upset when we asked him about it.
“He then asked to pay him R45,000 he claimed he spent on renovating the house, which was not in need of renovations. A few months later, these conspiracy to commit murder charges were brought against us,” Asha said.
Padayachee told the POST after the case that he was disappointed in the justice system and he still lived in fear of his life.
“I am furious that the case was not taken to trial. I believe this is an unfair judgment from the court. We provided evidence which was not taken into consideration.
“This family would not have been kept imprisoned without bail for over two weeks if there was no proper evidence. We are fearing for our lives. I have four minor children and the court did not consider our safety,” he claimed.
In response to the extortion allegations, Padayachee said he never charged money for prayers, but claimed that devotees, including the Uthamlal family, had donated “large amounts” to the temple.
He said the Uthamlal family had become devotees of the temple after the prayers he had done had “worked for them”.
He denied allegations of him taking money from the Uthamlal family to sacrifice an ox at the graveyard, and said he was not a guru but a spiritualist who used “black magic” to remove dark energy.
“I am not a guru. I am an Indian spiritualist - an Indian version of a Sangoma. I have been doing this for the last 18 years. My spiritual gift comes from a family lineage and ancestors.
“People come to me to remove dark energy, which is a supernatural energy that takes over vulnerable people, and for supernatural blessings,” he said.
“When I met the Uthamlal family, they donated large amounts of money because the rituals were working for them. I also did rituals for protection and luck.
“Who would go to the extent of gifting somebody a house if things were not working for them? They would have stopped if I did not help them. I did not expect the case to end this way and I will do whatever it takes to ensure that this outcome is challenged in court,” Padayachee said.