Maoist leader guilty of child abuse and false imprisonment

Balakrishnan kept his daughter imprisoned until she was 30 and assaulted her sexually

LONDON: Aravindan Balakrishnan was found guilty of child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter by a jury at Southwark crown court.

The 75-year old leader of the Maoist commune in south London (1975-2013) is an immigrant from Singapore.

He was also convicted of rape and sexual assault of fellow cult members.

The verdicts follow a two-year police investigation into a case which Scotland Yard detectives described as “completely unique”.



Balakrishnan’s daughter spent her entire life until the age of 30 effectively imprisoned in the commune ruled over by her father, who insisted on being called Comrade Bala and threatened that “everybody who leaves dies”.

She told the police about regular beatings inflicted by her father.

Balakrishnan lied to his daughter, telling her that her father was a dead freedom fighter whereas her mother died in childbirth.

In reality, her mother lived inside the commune with her until she died after falling from a window in 1997.



The victims were kept at a house in Peckford Place, Brixton, from where they later escaped, sparking a police investigation into the matter.

Among the victims was a British woman, who is now 64, and a Malaysian woman, who was involved in the cult from 1977 to 1992.

Tom Manson of the Metropolitan police's organised crime command praised the “courage” of the victims for testifying despite the traumatic experience.



Balakrishnan had established the Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in 1975 in which he led a small group of 10 women in order to prepare for China's "international dictatorship".

This article originally appeared on The Guardian