Indian-origin Maoist cult leader found guilty of raping, imprisoning followers dies in prison

Aravindan Balakrishnan, who referred to himself as Comrade Bala, was jailed for 23 years in 2016 after he was found guilty of committing a string of sexual assaults and keeping his daughter captive for 30 years.

The Indian Express/April 9, 2022

An 81-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader who imprisoned and raped his female followers for three decades in his house in South London died in prison on Friday.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, who referred to himself as Comrade Bala, was jailed for 23 years in 2016 after he was found guilty of committing a string of sexual assaults and keeping his daughter captive for 30 years. Balakrishnan sexually abused a number of women by convincing them he had god-like powers, according to a Sky News report.

In 1975, Kerala-born Balakrishnan moved from Singapore to South London, where he set up a secretive Maoist commune called the ‘Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought’. He died in custody at HMP Dartmoor Prison in Princetown, the Prison Service said.

During his trial, jurors heard he had raped two of his followers. He was also said to have terrified his followers into believing he could read their minds and that a supernatural force called Jackie would cause natural disasters if they disobeyed his orders, BBC reported.

His daughter Katy Morgan-Davies, who had until recently remained anonymous in the case, has previously described her experience in her father’s house as “horrible, so dehumanising and degrading”. “I felt like a caged bird with clipped wings,” she told BBC.

While imprisoned in her father’s home, she was beaten, and banned from singing nursery rhymes, going to school or making friends. It was only as a teenager that she learnt that her biological mother was one of her father’s followers.

She was able to escape her father’s cult in 2013, and has since moved to Leeds to pursue her education.

Balakrishnan faced 16 charges including rape, sexual assault and assault of two women, and wrongful imprisonment and child cruelty in respect to his daughter.

During his trial, he denied all the allegations against him. He claimed he was “the focus of competition” between “jealous” women who made sexual advances at him.

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