Who is Aravindan Balakrishnan? Leader of Maoist cult known as Comrade Bala who brainwashed his own daughter
LAST year, Aravindan Balakrishnan was locked up for 23 years for offences including false imprisonment, child cruelty and assault.
Tonight a BBC2 documentary will reveal the atrocities that he inflicted on his daughter and those who were a part of his "cult" - which he claimed followed teaching of China's Chairman Mao.
But who was the man who ran "The Cult Next Door"? We've got all the details...
Who is Aravindan Balakrishnan?
Aravindan Balakrishnan, 76, from Enfield, London, created a cult that followed the teachings of China’s Chairman Mao.
Balakrishnan ran the cult, called the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, from a London HQ.
He was jailed last year, for a sentence of 23 years, after he was found to have kept his own daughter as a slave, as well as raping and brainwashing those who followed him.
His sect was made up of women and he carried out a ruthless campaign of sexual degradation them over the decades they were held.
It is said that Balakrishnan convinced his followers into believing that he had God-like powers – including telepathy.
What did Aravindan Balakrishnan do to his daughter?
Balakrishnan's brave daughter has spoken out about life under the man who declared himself God.
Katy Morgan-Davies was imprisoned by her dad - known as Comrade Bala - from birth and was told lightening would strike her dead if she tried to escape.
Now 33-year-old Katy has spoken out about the torment of living "life a caged bird" since waiving her right to anonymity.
She described how she made friends with the bathroom tap, telling it: “You are on my side. I’d kiss the tap. I’d hug the toilet when the flush worked.”
Katy – who had the social skills of a six year-old when she escaped in 2013 - said he did not tell her he was her dad, or that her mum Sian Davies was a follower.
Miss Davies fell from a window at the HQ in 1996 and died several months later in hospital.
Katy said that night she heard screaming and shouting and saw her mum lying in blood and pleading with Balakrishnan to "kill me".
She said: “She was gagged. There was a piece of cloth in her mouth. [Other cult members] Om, Josie, Bala and Chanda were holding her down.”
Katy had not been to a doctor or a dentist – and told natural disasters were her fault.
She added: “He said the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up because people were challenging him in the house.”
When a pizza was delivered to the home by mistake Balakrishnan told the cult an earthquake in Japan that day was linked.
He said it was the fascist state trying to provoke him. When an earthquake struck in Kobe in Japan hee said Kobe means God’s Door.
Katy said: “It was to punish the Fascist State for the fact that the pizza delivery boy had come to God’s, Balakrishnan's, door.”
She says Balakrishnan was the only one allowed to cuddle her.
Her birth was described as ‘Project Prem’ – with her destiny to help ‘Comrade Bala’ rule the world.
Katy wore gender neutral clothes, no mention was made of her parents. She was raised without toys and contact with other children.
She was christened Prem Maopinduzi, which means, she explains ‘Love Revolution’.
When can I watch BBC2's The Cult Next Door about Aravindan Balakrishnan?
The full story of the cult is being told for the first time in a new documentary to be screened BBC 2 tonight at 10pm.
In it one man, who lived in a house in Brixton, breaks down in tears as he talks about seeing Katy at the window – but never dreamt she was in danger.
Speaking shortly after he was jailed Katy said: "I felt like a caged bird with clipped wings.";
Katy, who has changed her name from Rosie, said: "It was horrible, so dehumanising and degrading."
She said she was so lonely she also tried to befriend mice.
Katy fled in 2005 and ended up at a police station, but was persuaded to return home because it was a bank holiday.
In 2013, she escaped for good, leading to her father's arrest.
He was convicted of rape, child cruelty, false imprisonment and indecent assault.
Katy added: "I want him to recognise what he did was wrong. I've been a non-person all my life and now is my chance to be myself."
Incredibly she now says: “I would like to reconcile with him in the future…if he wants it.”
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