HC refuses to suspend sentence of Rampal’s followers

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 16

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has refused to order suspension of sentence of three women convicted of using elderly persons, children and women as a human shield to prevent police and administration authorities from entering Rampal’s Satlok Ashram in Barwala during a face-off in 2014.

The applicants — Babita, alias Baby, Poonam and Savitri — and other co-accused were convicted of “having murdered four women and an infant” before being sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life without remission.

The deaths took place during clashes between Rampal’s supporters and the police, which had come to arrest Rampal in a murder case. His followers were armed with stones, batons and guns.

Referring to the prosecution version, the Bench of Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice Lalit Batra asserted that the applicants, along with co-accused, called numerous followers to Satlok Ashram in a pre-planned manner to avoid execution of the arrest warrant issued against Rampal by the High Court.

They were called on the pretext that Rampal would bless the followers. But a number of women followers were confined in the ashram as hostages.