Photos: Violent clashes between Rampal's supporters, Haryana police in Hisar kill six

[caption id=“attachment_1809973” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Police use batons and water cannon to disperse supporters of controversial guru Sant Rampal outside Satlok Ashram in Hisar. The 63-year-old ‘godman’ was to appear before the High Court on Tuesday but he did not do so, with his counsel saying he was “unwell”. Rampal’s supporters surrounded his ashram and refused the police to enter and arrest him, because of which violent clashed took place. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809983” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Police use tear gas to disperse Rampal’s supporters. Many of Rampal’s devotees who escaped from his ashram are saying that they were forced to stay back in the premises and used as human shields. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809985” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Security personnel drag away a follower of Sant Rampal during clashes. Haryana Police confirmed that five women and a child died during the stand-off. Haryana DGP SN Vashisht told media that bodies of four women were handed over by Satlok Ashram authorities to police while one woman and an 18-month-old child died in hospital. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809987” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Rampal continued to evade arrest even as hundreds of his followers left his ashram. District authorities said that over 10,000 people, who were inside the ashram complex for the past few days, started leaving the premises on early Wednesday. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809989” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] A JCB machine burns during violent clash between Police and Sant Rampal’s followers. The clashes left nearly 250 people, including 110 policemen, injured. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809991” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Sect followers fired openly at the police, lobbed petrol bombs and acid pouches, besides hurling stones and bricks outside the ashram in Haryana’s Hisar district, 210 km from Chandigarh, clearly indicating that the sect was well-prepared to resist security forces. PTI[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_1809993” align=“alignleft” width=“940”] Rampal’s supporters had indulged in vandalism in a court in Hisar in July this year when he was going there in connection with a 2006 murder conspiracy case. The high court took suo motu notice of the incident and summoned Rampal. PTI[/caption]