Dead: UK cult leader who held a Malaysian woman for decades

 

Maoist cult leader Aravindan Balakrishnan kept several women, including Siti Aishah Wahab, in captive-like conditions.

PETALING JAYA: “Comrade Bala”, a cult leader who kept a Malaysian woman among others captive for decades, has died in a British prison six years after being convicted for rape, sexual assault, child cruelty and false imprisonment.

Aravindan Balakrishnan died yesterday at the age of 81, the BBC reported.

India-born Aravindan, who called himself Comrade Bala, brainwashed his cult into thinking he had godlike powers. He gained infamy for keeping several women captive at a house in London.

One of them was a Malaysian, Siti Aishah Wahab, who was freed by the police in October 2013 after living under him for more than three decades.

Upon her release, London police described the case as unique and said they were also looking into the “invisible handcuffs” that had been used to keep Aishah and two others in captivity.

Aishah was said to be a brilliant student who worked her way up to earn a scholarship to study in London in the late 60s.

The Negeri Sembilan native reportedly moved to the UK in 1968 with her fiance after a fallout with her family.

The Daily Mail reported that Aravindan was born in Kerala, India, and raised in Singapore before moving to London in 1963.

He had called himself a “revolutionary socialist” and used his fervent speeches to recruit fellow students, including Malaysian nurses, for his cause.

The BBC said Aravindan’s political collective was infamous in London for its extreme views. He established the Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in the 1970s in south London and convinced his followers into thinking he could read their minds.

He had brainwashed them into believing that a supernatural entity named Jackie would cause trouble like natural disasters if they disobeyed him. - FMT