CHANDIGARH, HISAR (TIP): Controversial godman Rampal and his close aides have been booked for murder on November 20. They have been blamed for the six deaths at Rampal’s Satlok Ashram near Barwala during the clashes with security forces. Haryana‘s Director General of Police S.N. Vashisht told the media: “The murder cases relate to the six deaths at the ashram.” Vashisht said Rampal had been sent to Hisar for investigation of the fresh cases against him which include sedition, rioting, illegal detention and violation of Arms Act.

Earlier, he was sent to judicial custody till November 28 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court after days of stubborn resistance by his followers, which turned Barwala town in Haryana’s Hisar district into a virtual warzone. There was loud hooting as the godman emerged from the court after the hearing. Dressed in a shirt and track pant and wearing slippers, the godman sat through the hourlong hearings, which started earlier than scheduled.

The court ordered that Rampal be immediately sent to jai as the Division Bench cancelled his bail in the 2006 murder case. Rampal was put behind bars in Panchkula this morning after the high court cancelled the bail granted to him in April 2008 in a 2006 murder case. He was taken from a government hospital in Panchkula, where he was admitted early in the day, to the Sector 5 police station adjoining Chandigarh. Disappointment writ large on his face, Rampal stood in the lock up holding the iron bars, occasionally looking down. Before being taken to the police station, Rampal claimed that he was an innocent man.

“I am innocent. All the charges against me are baseless,” he told journalists. When asked if he sorry for the death of six people at his ashram during the Satlok Ashram standoff, he said, “I did not ask them to be there.” The 63-year-old godman was arrested on November 19 night, more than 24 hours after over 5,000 security personnel stormed his fortified ashram compound using water cannon, tear gas and batons. More than 500 devotees of Rampal, including nearly 250 members of his private army, called Baba’s Commandoes, were also arrested.