NEW DELHI: With egg on its face, the Haryana government and its police is finally showing some resolve in preparing the ground for the arrest self styled godman Rampal, a day after its force was attacked and beaten back by “Baba’s Commandoes.” However, while it has arrested his aide the police has been unable to track down Rampal although now he has been slapped with a sedition charge, in addition to the murder charges he was facing.

In Tuesday’s confrontation six persons are reported killed, including an 18 year old child. The bodies of four women were handed over by the ashram to the district authorities. A fifth woman was brought out in a critical state, and died in hospital.

It now appears that Rampal had called his ‘disciples’ for a discourse, and thousands were trapped inside as virtual hostages during the clash between his men and the police. According to the Haryana police, 10,000 fled the Hisar ashram in Haryana as soon as they were able to, but at least 5000 remain to protect Rampal who continues to evade arrest. The police used tear gas and lathis, the ‘commandoes’ used petrol bombs, acid bottles, stones and guns as well.

The police, however, despite a so called 12 hour stakeout is not close to arresting Rampal as yet. The former junior engineer in the Haryana government who moved on to declare himself a ‘saint’ is clearly in no mood to surrender. His followers claim he is not inside the ashram although the police insists that it has information that he is. However, the state Director General of Police S N Vashisht told reporters that the police was not going to rush the arrest as it did not want to cause any casualties. The people inside the ashram include women, children and the aged.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court that has shown considerable patience over the past four years with Rampal skirting at least 43 court appearances, has in yet another extension fixed Friday November 21 as the ultimatum date for the police to present him in court. The possibility of a contempt of court being filed against the Haryana chief minister (see The Citizen report) remains with the court, as till date the authorities have not shown the ‘will’ to arrest Rampal on the basis of the non bailable warrant issued by the courts.

The sedition charge against him shows a shift in stance although it remains to be seen whether the arrest is made in time as per the court directives. The authorities had been urging the followers to leave the ashram but there was no movement till this morning.

Rampal has opened several ashrams across Haryana and his political clout with the earlier Congress government and the BJP seems to be considerable. Both political parties are now engaged in a war of words, the Congress accusing the BJP of attacking the media, and the BJP insisting that the Congress was only interested in politicising the issue. Neither of the two have an answer as yet to the following questions that arise from the drama:

  1. How did Rampal rise to this level, with real estate assets across the state?
  2. Why is it that no action was taken against his violation of the law and the nurturing of a ‘private army’ over decades?
  3. Rampals men shot at villagers and killed one of them. A murder charge was registered against him, why was he not arrested?
  4. He managed to skirt all court directives, how was this allowed by the law enforcing authorities of Haryana?
  5. Why is the state government and its police finding it so difficult to arrest him now?

Sixty policemen, over 70 journalists were injured in the clash on Tuesday. Six have been killed, along with many injured from within the ashram. And yet Rampal continues to defy the state, and has still not been arrested.

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