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Deadly ‘rampage’ after India’s ‘guru of bling’ is convicted of raping two followers

P

Piecake

Member
imrs.php
imrs.php
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In times of trial a child’s place is near the father, they believe. So they went, thousands of obedient sons and daughters marching the roads of India together.

All week, followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda religious sect converged on the city of Panchkula, where a court on Friday found Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh guilty of raping two followers, according to news reports. Police put the town on a security lockdown, the Associated Press reported.

And, in the wake of the ruling, authorities in both Haryana and the neighboring state of Punjab, also on high alert, battled against an outbreaks of unrest against police and the news media by followers of the headline-grabbing Singh, known as the “guru of bling.”

At least 13 people were killed and 32 injured in the widening clashes, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehereshi told reporters. Vivek Bhadu, the chief medical officer of the Civil Hospital in Panchkula, put the number of injured at 150.

“We were not expecting the conviction … The fight has just begun,” one follower, identified as Rajesh, was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.

The violence quickly spread to New Delhi, about 150 miles to the south. A rail car was set ablaze at one station in the city.
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The sect’s leader is a cultural heavy-hitter among India’s holy men. With a black Santa-size beard and a penchant for roaring around on motorcycles, Singh describes himself on Twitter as “Spiritual Saint/Philanthropist/Versatile Singer/Allrounder Sportsperson/Film Director/Actor/Art Director/Music Director/Writer/Lyricist/Autobiographer/DOP.”

But the state courts said he was a rapist who took advantage of two followers 14 years ago, charges Singh denied. Over the past couple of weeks, as the verdict neared, masses of his followers — reportedly more than 100,000 of them — arrived in the region, and the city was not ready. In a video appeal before the verdict, Singh asked his supporters not to resort to violence, AP reported.

Panchkula sits on a heat-stunned plain in the northern Indian state of Haryana. The believers pushed in like a wave that refused to break, packing roadsides and lying in the shade from colorful tents stretched over empty fields. They did not leave when the local government said go. They dug in when the state reportedly canceled the region’s 29 train runs, shut down the Internet, and put the army on standby.

While the Dera’s followers maintained their presence was peaceful and supportive, critics said it amounted to threat-by-numbers and was meant to frighten riot-weary government into a lenient verdict.

“It is absolutely an intimidating tactic,” Utsav Singh Bains, an attorney for the two victims, told NDTV this week. “This is a subversion of justice. You cannot put any kinds of pressure on a judicial system as a means to intimidate.”

If anything, however, the situation in Panchkula illustrates how intractable the guru world remains in India’s globalizing social and political circles.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ing-convicted-of-rape/?utm_term=.cc73c50d76cb
 
C

CitizenVectron

Member
I don't want to sound ignorant or racist or anything of the sort, I am legitimately curious—why does it seem like India is more susceptible to mob behaviour? Is it to do with massive population density, or perhaps (or combined with) different cultural norms towards authority?
 
B

BlackJet

Member
I saw an imgur post about this yesterday. Words don't really describe the amount of followers who all came to see the outcome.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
BlackJet said:
I saw an imgur post about this yesterday. Words don't really describe the amount of followers who all came to see the outcome.
Click to expand...

It seems like India has some severe issues with these "holy men". It's not the first time nor the second I've read about severe rioting over some blatantly corrupt conman taking advantage of the credulous, the uneducated and the desperate. This is probably worsened by politicians taking advantage of them:

Before the 2014 Haryana state elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Narendra Modi praised Singh in order to attract the Dera Sacha Sauda followers.[19]. Singh supported the BJP in the state elections, thus helping BJP form a non-coalition government in the state for the first time.[3] In February 2015, his organisation openly supported BJP in Delhi elections, saying that he has over 20 Lakh followers in Delhi.[20][21][22] His organization supported BJP in the Bihar assembly election in 2015, and nearly 3000 Dera followers campaigned for BJP in the state.[23] In 2016, the Haryana sports minister Anil Vij announced a ₹ 5 million grant to the Dera for promoting sports, in Singh's presence, leading to a controversy.[24]
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The situation with Nigerian preachers also beggars belief.
 
A

a916

Member
One doesn't need to look far, look at how much support Salman Khan got in his court case.

It's sickening and disgusting.
 
S

spindoctor

Member
TheGreatPotato said:
I don't want to sound ignorant or racist or anything of the sort, I am legitimately curious—why does it seem like India is more susceptible to mob behaviour? Is it to do with massive population density, or perhaps (or combined with) different cultural norms towards authority?
Click to expand...

Every social ill in India can be attributed, at it's core, to a lack of education. People follow holy 'godmen' because they were never taught that these conmen are peddling bullshit. Politicians in India take full advantage of this lack of education instead of trying to fix it. It is easier to control an uneducated population. It is easier to rile them up and turn them against each other. People follow religion blindly because that is all they were ever taught. India is a highly conservative society because of a lack of education which allows archaic medieval customs and laws to survive when they should have been abolished ages ago.

It all boils down to a lack of education.
 
J

Jumeira

Banned
Shame people have lost their lives over a man convicted of rape, good on the judiciary not giving in to pressure as I believe this Guru had strong political clout.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Funky Papa said:
The situation with Nigerian preachers also beggars belief.
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Well... it's a phenomenon imported from the US.

The black-led Pentecostal mega-church is far from a Nigerian invention. Nigerians simply followed what was already proven State-side to be a very lucrative and very successful model.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Zabka said:
Holy shit this is the guy that makes those terrible movies about how great he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scuWiXG5bh8

Jesus Christ look at this insanity: https://youtu.be/SyHlucSQDjU?t=180
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I nearly shart myself when I saw that fuck manipulating a lathe with that beard.

That's precisely how bad things happen. The kind that end up with what remains of your face on LiveLeak.

I'm also somewhat baffled by his "I'm awesome, worship me" schtick. Is that it?

Edit:

5jd3Tbi.gif



This feels like some kind of prank, I swear.
 
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