Mass mudcheck underway in India

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Tens of thousands of angry followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh — who calls himself the "Guru of Bling" — forced a lockdown in cities in northern India on Friday, after a court convicted the guru of raping two of his followers. Local media report at least 28 people have died in the unrest.

Protesters set fires and clashed with police and security officers in two states, Haryana and Punjab, after a court in Panchkula announced it had found the guru guilty.

"Followers of the flashy self-styled religious leader warned that his legal day of reckoning would be bloody," NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from New Delhi. After the verdict was announced, Julie says, His supporters "cut a swath of destruction across the city of Panchkula, where a curfew is now imposed. The army is reported to have moved in to take control and dispersed the crowds who had pelted stones and broke barricades."

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