Maoist cult leader who kept own daughter captive for 30 years dies in jail

Aravindan Balakrishnan, 81, of Enfield, known as himself Comrade Bala and brainwashed his followers (Image: Getty Pictures / BBC)

The chief of a Maoist cult who preyed on his feminine followers and saved his daughter captive in London for 3 a long time, has died in jail.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, 81, of Enfield, known as himself Comrade Bala and brainwashed his followersinto believing he had godlike powers.

He was jailed for 23-years in 2016 after he was convicted of a string of offences together with little one cruelty, false imprisonment and assault.

He died in HMP Dartmoor on Friday, the BBC has reported.

Throughout his trial at Southwark Crown Courtroom, jurors heard that over 30 years he raped two of his followers.

Balakrishnan established the cult in south London within the Nineteen Seventies and satisfied his followers he may learn their minds.

He terrified them with threats a supernatural drive known as Jackie would trigger havoc if he was ever disobeyed.

His daughter, Katy Morgan-Davies, mentioned the cult had been a ‘horrible’ ‘dehumanising and degrading’ expertise.

Balakrishnan arrange his sect within the Nineteen Seventies and was jailed for 23-years in 2016 (Image: BBC/Public Area)

Through the trial she informed the court docket she was overwhelmed and banned from singing nursery rhymes, going to highschool or making mates.

Ms Morgan-Davies, who waived her proper to anonymity, mentioned: ‘I used to assume, “God, if the entire world goes to be like this, what method out is there? How am I going to reside? I can't reside on this.”

‘So I used to assume that the easiest way can be to die.’

Balakrishnan was born in Kerala, India, earlier than being raised in Singapore, the place he moved together with his father who labored at a British Naval Base.

In 1963, he got here to Britain and utilized for a level course on the London College of Economics (LSE).

Whereas at LSE, Balakrishnan grow to be concerned in politics, reportedly describing himself as a ‘revolutionary socialist’.

He started public talking and recruiting fellow college students to his trigger.

He re-styled himself as Comrade Bala within the Nineteen Seventies, when he established the Staff’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.

The principle perception he instilled within the group was that solely he and the Chinese language dictator Mao Zedong had the authority to ‘lead the world to revolution to determine a world dictatorship of the proletariat’.

A Jail Service spokesperson mentioned the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman had been knowledgeable of Balakrishnan’s loss of life.

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