'Rampal has confessed to keeping devotees in ashram forcibly'

CHANDIGARH: "Baba ke liye jaan di to seedhe Satlok jaaoge" (You will directly go to heaven if you sacrificed your life for Baba) was the slogan given by the close aides of controversial preacher Rampal to force his followers to form a human shield at his Satlok Ashram near Barwala town of Hisar last month, when police made a move to execute the non-bailable arrest warrants against the godman.
This emerged during the interrogation of Rampal and his aides to ascertain their alleged role in the deaths of six women and one child in Satlok Ashram on November 17 and 18, when police laid siege to the ashram.
Rampal, who is in police custody since November 19, will be produced in the court on Thursday after his three-day police custody in the murder cases ends. Police are likely to arrest the preacher in the third murder case registered against him pertaining to the alleged sacrifice of a follower, a Narwana resident, in his ashram.
Alleging human sacrifice, victim's kin had approached the Punjab and Haryana high court for referring the case to Central Bureau of Investigation.
Hisar superintendent of police Satender Kumar Gupta said Rampal had confessed that women and children were made hostages, to be used as human shield for him and his private commandos. A few "sevikas" (women followers) had even thrashed those who insisted on going out of the ashram, he said.
"Rampal has confessed that women and children, who insisted on leaving the ashram, were thrashed by his commandos and women devotees as their exit would have weakened the human shield created by him. They died of suffocation while being kept in a hall in the ashram. An aged woman, whose ribs were found to be broken, was also among those thrashed by the godman's commandos," said Gupta.
The SP said they were identifying women followers and commandos involved in the assault of devotees. "They are the ones who had been propagating that dying for Rampal will take them to 'satlok'," he added.
Six women -- Sarita, a resident of New Delhi, Rajni, from Jakhor in Uttar Pradesh, Santosh, Adarsh, Rajbala and Malkiat Kaur of Sangrur -- died in the ashram during police operation to arrest Rampal. Autopsy reports of Santosh and Rajbala suggested that they had injuries as their ribs were found fractured. After the death of these devotees, two separate murder cases were registered against Rampal and his men at Barwala police station.