GODMAN GUILTY, DEVOTEES RUN RIOT
Dera chief convicted in rape case, 30 killed in widespread clashes
PANCHKULA, HARYANA: At least 30 people were killed on Friday after followers of controversial “godman” Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh rampaged across Haryana and Punjab, clashing with police and setting fire to vehicles and railway stations to protest against his conviction in the 2002 rape of two women.
Police said most of the deaths occurred in Panchkula, where Singh, the head of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect, was convicted in a highly guarded CBI court earlier in the day. Two deaths were reported from Sirsa, the sect’s headquarters. At least 200 were injured.
Minutes after the verdict, the flashy guru’s hysterical followers, who had gathered in the thousands to protest his innocence, began targeting vehicles and offices with sticks and stones, turning the streets of Panchkula into a virtual war zone. They also set fire to a petrol pump, vandalised a five-star hotel and beat up journalists and damaged their vehicles and equipment. Plumes of smoke from burning vehicles and tear gas shells rose high above the town’s tree-lined streets.
Police first used batons and water cannons, and finally fired to disperse the followers of Singh, a burly man with black Santa Claus beard who has scripted and starred in his own films.
Vivek Bhadu, the chief medical officer at the civil hospital in Panchkula, said most of the deaths were from bullet wounds.
At least 30 people died in clashes during the Jat stir that rocked Rohtak and parts of Haryana. In 2014, six people were killed as followers of another popular religious leader, guru Rampal, fought pitched battles with police attempting to arrest him over a murder trial.
Congress leader Kiran Choudhry said the BJP government abdicated its responsibility and left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of miscreants.
“It is high time the Khattar government takes charge. It is the third occasion when it has badly let down the people. The way things happened point to total failure of the state government,” she said.
According to a retired bureaucrat, who didn’t wish to be named, no political party wants to antagonize the flamboyant 50-year-old Dera chief because his large support base. He claims to command a near-devotional following of 50 million people and is sought out during state and parliamentary elections. The BJP is said to have benefitted from the Dera’s generosity in the 2014 general elections. And a top leader of the sect announced at its headquarters in Sirsa before this year’s assembly polls in Punjab that it would support the BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal alliance.