Indian-origin cult leader jailed for rape dies in UK prison
India Today
Aravindan Balakrishnan, known to his followers as Comrade Bala, died in jail on Saturday. He had been sentenced to 23 years in jail by a UK court for assault and rape charges.
An Indian-origin man who ran a secretive extremist Maoist cult in London and was sentenced to 23 years in jail by a UK court for a string of sexual assaults six years ago has died in jail.
Aravindan Balakrishnan, known to his followers as Comrade Bala, was sentenced for six counts of indecent assault, four counts of rape and two counts of actual bodily harm back in 2016.
The 81-year-old found guilty of “brutal” violence died in custody at HMP Dartmoor prison in south-west England on Friday, the UK Prison Service said.
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The cult leader had been convicted following a jury trial in December 2015, where it emerged that he had kept his daughter in captivity for over 30 years of her life.
The daughter described her situation in court as “horrible, dehumanising and degrading”.
Sentencing Balakrishnan in January 2016, the judge said: “You decided to treat her as a project, not a person. You claimed to do it for her to protect her from the outside world, but you created a cruel environment.” Balakrishnan, born in a village of Kerala, lived and grew up in Singapore and Malaysia before moving to the UK in 1963 to study at the London School of Economics.
