Rampal, a self-styled preacher and the top of Satlok Ashram in Haryana’s Hisar district, walked out of jail this week after almost 12 years in custody. Movies of his stroll into his ashram have gone viral on Instagram for the reason that Friday launch, with followers, who name him Sant Rampal, seeing it as a “triumphant return”. By Saturday, April 11, he’d held his first discourse after return too.
The 75-year-old’s launch got here after the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket granted him bail in a 2014 sedition and violence case, citing his superior age, extended incarceration, and the gradual tempo of trial.
Upon getting back from jail, in his first ‘satsang’ or discourse, he spoke of his “struggle towards ignorance”, which he claimed he had gained. After getting back from what he known as a “lengthy wrestle”, he stated there was not better enthusiasm amongst his followers.
However his story as a ‘godman’-figure stretches again over three a long time, with key milestones unfold out neatly nearly each 10 years.
The one which landed him in jail is from 2014, when six of his followers have been killed in a standoff with police who’d come to arrest him in a homicide case.
The 2014 standoff that led to his arrest
The case by which Rampal has not bought bail didn’t start with a brand new crime, however over his repeated defiance of court docket orders. Between 2010 and 2014, Rampal averted showing earlier than courts at the very least 42 occasions in reference to a 2006 homicide case.
When the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket issued a non-bailable warrant towards him in November 2014, authorities moved to arrest him at his Satlok Ashram in Barwala in Hisar district.
A ten-day standoff adopted.
Lots of of Rampal’s followers surrounded the ashram, forming human chains to dam police entry. The supporters attacked police with petrol bombs and acid pouches in a bid to stop his arrest, HT reported on the time. Girls and youngsters have been allegedly used as shields. The Haryana authorities minimize off electrical energy and important provides to the ashram to power him out.
On November 18-19, 2014, police and paramilitary forces stormed the ashram. 5 ladies and an 18-month-old toddler have been discovered lifeless contained in the premises throughout the siege. A number of police personnel have been additionally injured.
Round 900 of Rampal’s followers have been arrested alongside him that evening. FIRs have been registered on the Barwala police station, and the fees fees towards him and his followers ranged from wrongful confinement to sedition, to homicide and felony conspiracy.
Life sentence suspended, bail granted
He was convicted of homicide, of the six individuals discovered lifeless within the ashram, in considered one of these circumstances in 2018, and was awarded life imprisonment. In August 2025, the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket suspended his life sentence. It cited his age, the size of time already served, and debatable medical proof across the causes of the deaths.
The court docket famous that shut relations of the deceased had not supported the prosecution’s case, with some testifying that the deaths have been brought on by suffocation from police teargas shells throughout the siege somewhat than by Rampal or his followers.
Even within the unique 2006 homicide case from Karontha — for which the police went to arrest him in 2014, resulting in the siege — he was acquitted 4 years in the past.
Sedition and another fees remained, associated to the 2014 siege. On this, the excessive Court docket granted him bail on April 8, 2026, ending his incarceration for now.
“Contemplating the lengthy incarceration of the appellant/accused, which is greater than 11 years, and his age being about 75 years and that majority of the witnesses are but to be examined, on account of which the trial shouldn’t be prone to be concluded within the close to future, it’s a match case to launch the appellant/accused on common bail,” the HC bench dominated, as per information company PTI.
The court docket, nevertheless, directed Rampal to not promote any type of “mob mentality”.
Who’s Rampal, truly?
He was born Rampal Singh Jatain on September 8, 1951, in Dhanana village of Gohana in Sonipat district, right into a Jat household of farmers.
He skilled as a civil engineer on the Industrial Coaching Institute (ITI) in Nilokheri, Karnal district, and labored as a junior engineer within the state authorities’s irrigation division. He served for round 15 years earlier than quitting in Could 1995, HT has reported.
He left apparently as a result of he’d had a turning level in 1994, when he got here into contact with a Kabir Panthi saint. Shortly after, he re-christened himself ‘Sant Rampal ji Maharaj’ and started promising salvation to followers. He arrange his Satlok Ashram of the Kabir Panthi sect by the top of the Nineteen Nineties in Karontha in Rohtak district at first. His following quickly unfold throughout Jhajjar and Rohtak. In later years he shifted to the Barwala ashram.
Rampal and the core concepts of Kabir Panth entice a major following amongst socially and economically marginalised communities, together with Dalits and different backward courses. Jats and different communities are drawn to the sect too, because the teachings, in concept, provide a path to salvation no matter caste.
He’s reportedly married to a lady named Anaro Devi and has two sons and two daughters.
In accordance with Satlok Ashram’s web site, Rampal’s core educating is that the Supreme God is Kabir, and that every one main scriptures throughout religions level to this. Followers should take formal initiation, known as “naam”, from Rampal, after which they comply with a strict code of conduct because the “path to salvation”, to an everlasting ‘abode or fact’, or Satlok.
He prohibits idol worship, pilgrimages, untouchability, alcohol, tobacco, different intoxicants, and meat, says the web site. The ashram says it’s strictly towards the dowry system.
His first brush with the regulation got here in 2006, when he allegedly used foul language towards the Arya Samaj sect, triggering violent clashes by which one man was killed. He was arrested on homicide fees and launched on bail in 2008.
He subsequently shifted his base to the Barwala ashram in Hisar, the place the 2014 standoff occurred.
