30 person died in India as fellowers protest conviction of Guru for rape

Friday 25 August 2017

30 person died in India as fellowers protest conviction of Guru for rape

At least 30 people are dead and hundreds more injured after a guru was convicted of rape in India.

Violence erupted across northern India’s Haryana state as the leader of a quasi-religious sect of raping two of his followers.

Thousands of supporters protested the verdict and attacked journalists covering the trial.

The court in the town of Panchkula announced the verdict after hearing closing arguments in the 15-year-old case against the guru, who calls himself Saint Dr Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insaan.

He had denied raping the two women at his ashram in 2002.

He was taken into custody and will be held in a jail in the nearby town of Rohtak in Haryana state until his sentencing hearing on August 28, prosecutors said.

Enraged by the verdict, protestors attacked TV journalists and media vehicles, breaking windscreens and broadcasting equipment.

Panchkula administrators had feared a guilty verdict would trigger violence among the tens of thousands of followers who had camped overnight awaiting the verdict.

More than 15,000 police and paramilitary soldiers were patrolling Panchkula.

Angry mobs also attacked officers in the town of Sirsa, where the guru’s ashram is located, according to local police.

The guru’s Dera Sacha Sauda sect claims to have 50 million followers and campaigns for vegetarianism and against drug addiction.

When the guru left his ashram in Sirsa for the hearing, he was accompanied by a 100-vehicle convoy.

Police had erected heavy metal barricades topped with barbed wire along main roads in Panchkula, a quiet residential suburb of Chandigarh, which is the common capital of Haryana and Punjab states.

‘We are prepared to deal with any situation, but are confident that adequate measures have been put in place,’ said BS Sandhu, a senior Haryana police official, before the verdict was read.