The followers of a popular Indian guru in northern India have rampaged through towns, vandalising property, setting railway stations on fire, smashing cars, setting media vans alight and clashing with security forces. Several lives have been lost in the violence. They are angry because a court found Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh guilty of raping two women at the headquarters of his religious group, known as Dera Sacha Sauda, in 2002. To his millions of supporters - mostly underprivileged, lower caste men and women - Singh is a protean leader of his flock. He mutates effortlessly from spiritual leader to flashy entertainer.
