Indo-British Man Who Enslaved Three Women For 30 Years Claimed He Was Jesus

LONDON – The Indo-British man who is the headof an extremist Maoist sectis accused of enslaving threewomen in his home here for30 years. After he was caught,he tried to convince his Britishfollowers he was Jesus Christ, aformer activist has claimed.Aravindan Balakrishnan,73, known as Comrade Bala,is also accused of persuadinghis followers to hand overthousands of pounds for therevolutionary cause.“He would say I am theChrist, follow me and peoplewould. He was never violent,he was too self-controlled. Butwomen abandoned their careersand their futures for him. Theywould have to put him and thecollective before their families,Dudley Heslop, a communityworker, told the EveningStandard.The 59-year-old Heslopclaims to have attended lecturesby Balakrishnan’s extreme leftwinggroup, Workers Instituteof Marxism-Leninism-MaoZedong Thought, for more thana year some four decades ago.The details emergedas Scotland Yard beganinterviewing Balakrishnan’sthree victims on Wednesday,more than a month after theywere freed from the southLondon commune.Commander SteveRodhouse, of the MetropolitanPolice, said that the rescuedwomen were still traumatisedand officers faced a delicate taskin interviewing them.“The crucial issue for us isthat clearly criminal offenceshave been committed. Weknow there has been physicalviolence, we know there hasbeen emotional abuse. The truenature and frequency of that, wehave yet to understand,” he said. He said 47 officers werenow working on the case.Detectives are looking at filesfrom the inquest of 44-yearoldSian Davies, who in 1997fell from a window at a houseoccupied by the leftist group inHerne Hill.A coroner describedDavies’ death as “mysterious”.Davies was the mother ofthe youngest rescued woman,who is now 30. Her daughter’sbirth certificate shows that shewas named Prem MaopinduziDavies, but now calls herselfRosie.Rosie told neighbours thatshe had been adopted by thegroup’s leaders, Comrade Balaand his 67-year-old Tanzanianoriginwife, Chanda.The couple were arrestedand bailed last week on suspicionof domestic servitude, falseimprisonment, assault andimmigration offences.Josephine Herivel, 57,another rescued woman,is the daughter of an Irishcodebreaker of the secondworld war from Bletchley Park,who cut off contact with herfamily after joining the group.Authorities in KualaLumpur have now confirmedthat the oldest of the rescuedwomen is Siti Aishah AbdulWahab, 69, who came toLondon in the early 1970s tostudy while wanted by police inMalaysia for left-wing activities.Her sister, Kamar Mautum,flew into Heathrow yesterday,hoping to meet up with her.