Self-styled Haryana godman Rampal, who rose from being a government officer to head a vague divinity cult in Hissar, was finally arrested after a four day siege of his highly fortified Satlok Ashram in Barwala village on Wednesday evening. Most of his followers cooped up in the ashram have also been taken away during the last two days.
Nearly 13,000 of the devotees, out of a possible 25,000, walked out of the ashram on Tuesday night, and another 3,000 stepped into waiting buses on Wednesday, narrating tales of torture, forced confinement and other activities bordering on orgies.
IG of Haryana Police Anil Kumar earlier told dna that 425 of his followers have been arrested including his brother Mahendra and close associate Purushotam. The police strategy was to refrain from violence and to wait him out.
But the question is whether the operation could have been better planned and if and early flushing out could have saved the lives of four ashramites who died of natural causes.
"Rampal has been arrested," IG Anil Kumar said, refusing to say how the arrest came about. Did Rampal surrender or was he arrested by force, which is not likely because that would have led to some violence. More likely, a compromise was worked out, as from morning on Wednesday an intelligence officer was relaying messages between Rampal and IG Kumar. In any case Rampal had little option but to surrender or wage a last ditch battle.
Hisar's Agrasen Hospital, where all the injured cops were taken, tells the tale of police's total lack of preparedness. On Wednesday, more than 80% of Haryana's policemen from 20 of its districts were in Barwala, leaving "only 50 policemen in each of the districts", a police official told dna. Even then it took the police another 24 hours to get their hands on Rampal.
Rampal, against whom the Punjab and Haryana high court has issued a non-bailable warrant for a murder case dating back to 2006 had refused to submit before the court. As many as 43 summons were issued in his name over the years. How did the government and the police let such a man build a cult with a huge following?
Ultimately like all cultist he successfully sold the idea that he was god to gullible, mostly uneducated peasants. His mother, brother and son also called him bhagwan. To the idea of god he also added money and most of the ashramites were paid around Rs5000 every month.
A former ashramite, today a staunch critic of Rampal, says he is a "paakhendi" (a fraud) who has women in thrall and men bending to his every wish. After the court ordered the arrest warrant, Rampal called for a satsang (prayer meeting), drew in thousands and then set the stage for taking on the police, armed with guns and molotov cocktails.
Rampal started his experiments with godhood by first following the Kabir-panthi line of thought. While singing praise of Kabir, he denounced the Arya Samaj, and then proclaimed himself god and proclaimed that the war now is between god Rampal and the Arya Samaj.
Some people in Barwala say the reality is political, that Rampal enjoys the patronage of the Congress and that he stayed out of trouble because of this proximity.
To the local Jats of Barwala, Rampal is an outsider, though he is a jat himself. They looked at him with suspicion. When the police began its siege of Satlok Ashram, local Jats provided logistical support. Police, including the CRP, and Rapid Action Force men have been stationed round the clock on the perimeter of the ashram, with every point of escape shut out. He had no option but to surrender and on Wednesday night he did just that.
How Rampal landed in Barwala is also a story. When he proclaimed himself the lead descendant and disciple of Kabir in 1996, he quit his government job and set up an ashram in Kharoda village of Rohtak. In 2003, he wrote a critic on Satyaarth Prakash's book of Dayanand Saraswati, founder of Arya Samaj. Amid this, he also got into loggerheads with Kabir's Chhudani Dham. Then, he was arrested on charges of murder and then got bail.
But the court also ordered the takeover of his first Kharoda ashram. This brought him to Barwala village where he set up an ashram right in the middle of village. The Jats opposed this and he had to move to the periphery, where Satlok Ashram now stands on a 12-acre plot. Subsequently, he bought another 55 acres adjacent to Satlok Ashram at Rs35 lakh per acre whereas the market price is Rs10 lakh. Curiously, Rampal 's followers are mostly from UP, MP, Jharkhand, Odhisha and Chahattisgarh.
But the native Barwalaian also fears Rampal, his money power, his political connections and his private army. "Rampal's fauj is far better trained then even policemen; they know all the dirty tricks of fighting a war. They have no scruples, and ruthless," said a villager.
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