A 73-year-old ethnic Indian Singaporean man, Aravindan Balakrishnan, and a 67-year-old Tanzanian[3] woman, his wife, Chanda Pattni, had been investigated for slavery and domestic servitude.
Aravindan Balakrishnan (known to his followers as "Comrade Bala") was born in Kerala, India, and migrated at the age of ten to Singapore, Malaya, where his father was a soldier.
[6] In 1977, while living in London, his Singaporean citizenship—which he gained in 1960—was revoked due to his leadership of the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought, which the Ministry of Home Affairs accused of engaging in "activities which are prejudicial to the security" of Singapore, and denounced him as a radical "closely associated with Eurocommunists".
[6] Despite believing the United Kingdom to be a fascist state due to its treatment of the people of Singapore during the Malayan Emergency, Balakrishnan emigrated to the UK in 1963 on a British Council scholarship to study at the London School of Economics, and married his wife Chandra in 1971.
[9] Between 1974 and 1976, his followers attempted to "build revolutionary stable base areas in working-class communities",[10] primarily South London, and worked in ordinary jobs.
[6] Following Mao's death in 1976, the Institute built the Mao Zedong Memorial Centre at 140 Acre Lane, Brixton, which also functioned as a communist collective of "thirteen comrades", with "13 members living on the premises, half in paid work, six doing full-time revolutionary work, with a strong emphasis on women taking a leading role (apart from leading the Party Committee headed by Bala)".
[11] Family members were later branded fascist agents and ostracised,[6] and Balakrishnan and his captives moved to a number of properties during this time as a means for him to escape detection from the authorities.
[6] In order to progress his cause, Balakrishnan invented "JACKIE" (an acronym for Jehovah, Allah, Christ, Krishna and Immortal Easwaran) – a type of dangerous, mystical machine that monitored all thought and could control minds.
[6][13] The two older victims are believed to have met Balakrishnan in London through, according to police, a shared political ideology,[23] as he was the leader of the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought.