A day after Gurmeet Ram Raheem was sentenced to 20 years in jail, another baba Rampal will face judgment on Tuesday. There are two cases for trial at a Hisar court in Haryana against Rampal. While in one case, he has been charged with obstructing government officials while on duty, in another case he was accused of holding people hostage in his ashram. Rampal is currently lodged in Hisar jail.
Rampal is another self-styled godman. The founder of a Satlok Ashram, a socio-spiritual movement popular in Haryana, he made sure his sect prohibits temple visits, idol worship, untouchability, adultery and “vulgar singing and dancing”, among other things. Rampal recommended worshipping Kabir as the supreme god.
Born as Rampal Singh Jatin in Dhanana, a village in the Gohana tehsil of Sonepat district, Punjab (part of Haryana since 1966), his father Nand Lal was a farmer. Rampal obtained a diploma from the Industrial Training Institute in Nilokheri, and then worked as a junior engineer in the Government of Haryana’s irrigation department. In 1996, he resigned from the job and in 1999, he founded the Satlok Ashram in Karotha village of Rohtak district.
He then lived in Shastri Nagar of Rohtak with his wife and two sons. His two daughters had married.
