CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/7/2025 (Zizians)

Zizians

KRON4: Who are the 'Zizians'? Bay Area murder suspect linked to 'cult

KROG4: Who are the 'Zizians'? Recent deaths linked to Bay Area 'cult'

A spree of killings across the country, including one in Vallejo, have been linked to a radical online community called the "Zizians."

Not much is known about the Zizians, but a non-verified online webpage dedicated to preventing people from joining the group calls it "a peculiar online cult that operates in the Bay Area." An investigation by Open Vallejo found that people involved in the recent Vallejo killing and the shooting of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont are possibly connected to the group.

Who are the Zizians?

Open Vallejo reviewed police records, spoke to a person familiar with the group and reviewed years of Internet posts as part of its investigation into the group. It said the Zizians follow a self-described "vegan Sith" ideology.

According to SFist, the Zizians appear to be computer-savvy and well-educated, and many or all of them identify as transgender or nonbinary.

The group follows "Rationalism," an ideology described by Oxford as "the belief that all behaviour, opinions, etc. should be based on reason rather than on emotions or religious beliefs."

Jessica Taylor, a person familiar with the Zizians who was interviewed by Open Vallejo, told the publication that Zizians believe human decisions and their effects are mathematically quantifiable. Veganism and animal rights are a core part of the group's belief, Taylor said.

The Zizians follow a person that goes by "Ziz" and ran a blog that is now shut down. Open Vallejo said Ziz, whose legal name is Jack LaSota, previously lived at the Vallejo property where the recent murder happened.

LaSota was named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of four people arrested for protesting a Berkeley nonprofit in Sonoma County in 2019. The protestors were allegedly wearing black robes and Guy Fawkes masks as they barricaded off an area where the nonprofit was holding an event.

The Zizans

" ... Transgender and Bigender

All four of the people arrested as part of Ziz's protest were transgender women (the fifth was let go without charges). This is far from coincidence as Ziz seems to go out of her way to target transgender people. In terms of cult indoctrination such folks are an excellent fit. They're often:

Financially vulnerable.
Newly out transgender people are especially likely to already be estranged from friends or family.
It is common for them to lack stable housing.

Many traditional social services (illegally) reject them for cultural or religious reasons (e.g., Christian homeless shelters).
Intolerant attitudes among the underclass hit twice: they can't rely on strangers for help and being transgender often makes them a target for violence; making them outcasts even among outcasts.
Already creating a new identity.

During transition people change their name. This creates an opportunity for Ziz to insert themselves into a recruits ongoing transition. By showing them their "double personhood" as they're abandoning an old identity it's possible to convince recruits to adopt a Zizian name (e.g., left hemisphere / right hemisphere) as their new social identity. 

 

As the name implies transition is a time of transition; old patterns and habits tend to fall away. People who have spent years repressing important parts of themselves suddenly have the opportunity to completely

change their social presentation. This does not always mean someone wants to play the same role as before but a different gender. With the radical changes that can accompany transition come strong opportunities for radicalization. 

 

All of these factors combine to make Ziz, themselves a transgender woman, more credible to recruits than she might otherwise be. A privileged cis person with close family and stable housing might reject boat housing out of hand: "I don't know, that sounds iffy to me". For someone facing mortal danger after their rude ejection into the underclass it's an easier pill to swallow: "It can't be worse than sleeping on the street right?"

Another important concept Ziz uses to manipulate people is the idea of being "bigender". Ziz claims that each hemisphere has a gender and that fairly often people have opposing gender identities between hemispheres. This provides a convenient basis for her to undermine the identity of people she's recruiting. If the target is cis, tell them their other half is trans, if the target is trans tell them their other half is cis. It's a similar disorienting trick to the idea of single and double good. If the target identifies as good tell them their other half is irredeemably evil, if they identify amorally insist that half of them is a saint. The pattern is to take aspects of folks identities that they're invested in and disrupt them by creating a domain of self which Ziz (and only Ziz) has knowledge about so the target is forced to trust their interpretation."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.

Facebook

Flipboard

Twitter

Instagram

The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

FAIRFIELD MAN SENTENCED FOR ROLE IN RUSSIAN ROULETTE DEATH

John Bain

KCII Radio
July 21, 2022

The Jefferson County Attorney’s Office states on November 7, 2021, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel responded to a home in Fairfield on a report that an individual had suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Twenty-one year-old Finnegan Edward Malloy reported that 19-year-old Caleb Heisel had shot himself in the head while playing “Russian Roulette.” Heisel was found dead upon the arrival of law enforcement and medical personnel. Officers located a revolver-style firearm with one spent cartridge at the scene, believed to belong to Malloy. Heisel’s body was sent to the State Medical Examiner’s office for autopsy. Malloy was arrested on November 24, 2021, by the Fairfield Police Department on one count of assisting suicide and one count of aiding and abetting reckless use of a firearm, both class C felonies.

Malloy took personal responsibility for his role in the offense, as well as his role in the theft at Maharishi International University Art Building of tools, supplies and equipment valued at greater than $10,000.00. The recovery of the stolen property at his home also uncovered controlled substances, including cocaine and MDMA, along with evidence of drug distribution.

Malloy was sentenced to indeterminate terms of incarceration not to exceed 10 years on each of those offenses, to run concurrently to each other and taken into custody.

https://www.kciiradio.com/2022/07/21/fairfield-man-sentenced-for-role-in-russian-roulette-death/

Five women accused of witchcraft lynched by India mob

Aljazeera
August 8, 2015

Villagers in a rural part of eastern India have killed five women whom they accused of practising witchcraft, police have said.

Police in eastern Jharkhand state said on Saturday that a group of assailants dragged the women out of their huts and beat them to death at around midnight on Friday in their village, some 30km from state capital, Ranchi.

"A group (of villagers) dragged the women out and beat them to death with sticks, accusing them of practising witchcraft," Ranchi deputy police chief Arun Kumar Singh told AFP news agency by phone.

At least 21 villagers have been arrested over the killings of the women, who were mostly aged between 45 and 50."Aishwarya Devi named four other women. Some of the villagers beat those five women to death. So far, we have arrested 21 people in the case," said Singh.

In yet another barbaric incident related to superstition in the tribal state, the villages alleged that those five women had killed a boy through their black magic.

"A boy died in the village a week ago. Allegation was leveled against a woman that she killed the boy through witchcraft," Singh said.

Belief in witchcraft widespread

Belief in witchcraft and the occult remains widespread in some parts of India.

In some cases women are stripped naked as punishment, burnt alive or driven from their homes and killed.

Some states including Jharkhand have introduced special laws to try to curb crimes against people accused of witchcraft.

Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das condemned the latest killings in a statement on Saturday, urging society to "ponder over it".

"In the age of knowledge, this incident is sorrowful".

The province accounted for 54 out of 160 barbaric cases where women were condemned to be witches and killed in 2013 and a total of 400 women have been murdered since 2001 in the state.

The National Crime Records Bureau has recorded 2,097 such killings between 2000 and 2012 in India.

http://flip.it/kc7al

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/women-accused-witchcraft-lynched-india-mob-150808111054841.html

Missing Pandit Brutally Killed

August 30, 2014
hi INDiA

CHICAGO (IL) — Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Well, Hi India was right when it published an article on the sorry plight of Vedic Pandits in its January 24, 2014 edition.

Ajit Panday, aged around 23 years, has been shot dead by an unknown suspect at Big Brother 2 Food Mart on 878 Norwood Road, Southeast Atlanta, Georgia.

Ajit was gunned down late in the night on August 24 as he approached the main gate to close for the day around 10 p.m.. He was found dead, with multiple gunshots, near the front door by the owner of the store – Poltu Roy.

Though Poltu Roy said store closed at 10 pm, the video recording of murder shows the time as 11.28 pm.

Ajit, a native of India, was brought to the US by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi University at Fairfield , Iowa, more than two years ago. Ajit had left O’Hare airport in March to flee and wander into the strange world to find his living.

Missing Pandit was Brutally Killed

Hi India Live

September 3, 2014

CHICAGO (IL) — Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Well, Hi India was right when it published an article on the sorry plight of Vedic Pandits in its January 24, 2014 edition. Ajit Panday, aged around 23 years, has been shot dead by an unknown suspect at Big Brother 2 Food Mart on 878 Norwood Road, Southeast Atlanta, Georgia.

Ajit was gunned down late in the night on August 24 as he approached the main gate to close for the day around 10 p.m.. He was found dead, with multiple gunshots, near the front door by the owner of the store – Poltu Roy.
Though Poltu Roy said store closed at 10 pm, the video recording of murder shows the time as 11.28 pm.

Ajit, a native of India, was brought to the US by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi University at Fairfield , Iowa, more than two years ago. Ajit had left O’Hare airport in March to flee and wander into the strange world to find his living.

All this is done to obtain more profit at the cost of life of people like Ajit Panday. In their brazen statements, Poltu Roy and Guru Chand shrugged off responsibility by informing that they had cautioned Ajit Panday to be careful in night time–no other measures were taken–though as per him, Ajit was only volunteering.

Ajit was working in the store for more than two months and was working from 8 am when it opened till the closing time of 11 p.m.–more than 15 hours a day–all the seven days of week. No proper food, sanitation or security was provided at the backroom, where Ajit was lodged after work. In fact, Ajit was housed in in-human conditions with a 15-hours-seven-days-a-week schedule.

The video released by the police/store owner Poltu Roy shows the victim Ajit walking outside to close and lock the security gate on the front door when his attention is drawn away from the building. He freezes in place as the armed robber approaches with his gun raised and forces himself inside.

Ajit was first struck in the face with the gun and after he falls, the gunman shoots him seven times at the door. All the shots were in the upper torso of the body. After that, the murderer is seen scavenging the cash registers, stopping, turning around, and shooting Panday again. After taking money and merchandise, the killer/robber takes to his heels and vanishes into the darkness.

In the South Asian community, there is fear that many more of such incidents of gruesome murders can happen if no Indian governmental action is initiated soon. The community believes that though Ajit is the first casualty that has come to light, there might be many more unknown cases of harassment and other kinds of inhuman treatments meted out to Vedic Pandits somewhere in the US.

While time is ripe for some urgent action by powers that be, it is also strange that despite the Hi India’s expose of the shady happenings in its January 2014 issue, no community leader or community organization has come forward to inquire or show their support to locate and take appropriate action to help Vedic Pandits.

Probably it is not one of those photo opportunities with some political leaders or bigwigs of the Indian government which they can proudly hang in their living rooms and brag about to friends and families. Well, the pathetic conditions of Vedic Pandits do not fit into one of those ‘Who’s Who’ or big names, but there is no doubt that humanity demands that all those attention-seekers come forward and initiate some action.

We can go to prayer places, build big prayer places and get our names engraved on brass plates at the entrance as big donors but let us not forget that ‘Service to mankind is service to God,’ and that being humane is important than self-aggrandizement.

Now is the high time for community to wake up and come forward to support the bereaved family of slain Ajit Panday, whose body was still in mortuary after six days of murder, in want of funds to send his mortal remains to India. Hi India took the initiative and tried reaching to the people concerned with shipping of the last remains of the murdered Ajit Panday to India but everyone of them avoided the direct question and pushed the blame on family in India to send the permission.

The family, which is still in shock after the loss of their eldest child and its only earning member, could not talk properly on phone. Gaur Chand, operator of the convenience store, flatly refused to do anything with it and dis-connected the phone and did not respond to several calls made later on. Poltu Roy, owner of the business and the building, pushed the liability on family to send a clearance. Ajay Prakash Shrivastava, nephew of Mahesh Yogi and head of global operations of the sponsoring University, also passed the buck to the family and said that he could not trace the family though all the information is available in office records.

This story originally appeared on Hi India Live.

http://us.india.com/illinois/missing-pandit-was-brutally-killed-137524/

Student kills self, four others with poisoned wine

May 18, 1997

BOGOTA (Reuter) - A crazed nursing student killed himself and four
classmates with poisoned sherry during a day trip to a town just north of Bogota Saturday, police said.

Four men and a woman were dead. At least six other people, all nursing
students, were in critical condition at the hospital in the town of Cajica,
a short drive outside the capital, regional police chief Col. Alonso Arango
said.

Police said one of the victims told them before dying that a male student
on the bus was passing out the wine and he was the apparent killer.

Toxicology checks showed the sherry had been laced with a lethal
insecticide commonly used to combat potato bugs, Arango said. He said no
motive for the murders had yet been established.

Police found a card in the clothes of one of the dead indicating he was a
member of a shadowy sect called the Order of Aquarius. Arango said it was
too early to say whether the bizarre killings were linked to the suspected
religious group, adding that he knew very little about them.

We found a membership card of a sect called the Order of Aquarius on one
of the bodies. We know very little about the group. It is too early to tell
if these deaths are related to a religious cult,'' Arango told Reuters.

The dead and injured were all part of a 200-strong group that set out from
Bogota in several buses to celebrate the graduation of 46 of the nursing
students. They had been going for a meal at the Indiana Jones restaurant between Cajica and the neighboring town of Chia.

St. Paul Massacre: First indications point to an international sect

"L'express Outlook

WWRN

 August 31, 2004

Friday afternoon: the police go to the Mawooas’ home in St Paul to look for Rajesh Dhayam. A few minutes later, they break their way into the locked house where they find ten bodies. The enquiry points to links with an international sect.

After being taken out of the house, the ten bodies were subject to autopsy. Cyanide was found in all of them.

After being taken out of the house, the ten bodies were subject to autopsy. Cyanide was found in all of them.

The discovery of ten bodies in a state of decomposition in a house at Béchard Lane Saint Paul is surely a heavy blow for the whole country. After three days of enquiry, the investigators have concluded that an “international sect” could be at the origin of the collective suicide. The police are now looking for clues in the past of Critika Mawooa, who seems to be responsible for this massacre. People having contact with the woman say she had a ‘mystical’ side.

Several clues brought the police to investigate further into the habits of this 37 year-old woman, the first being the fourteen-page suicide note found near her body. The letter, which has not been authenticated yet, states how unfortunate she was and how miserable her whole life was. It was because of her sentimental and financial problems that she decided to put an end to her life. So did the nine other persons found in the padlocked house of their own free will, according to the letter. Cyanide was found in all the bodies.

Two medallions carrying initials EK were found on the corpses of Crithika Mawooa and Rajesh Dhayam. These indices led the investigators to the assumption that the Eckankar sect is behind deaths.

The bodies may have remained there for some days before being found by the police. The neighbourhood did not really wonder about their absence as the Mawooas have always been very “discreet people.” The rest of the family were not worried either since they were told that the group was going to Rodrigues.

This macabre affair started on Friday afternoon. The members of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of Quatre-Bornes went to the Mawooa’s house to look for Rajesh Dhayam, Critika’s lover. This administrative assistant at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute had been reported missing since 6th August. The police went to Béchard Lane after finding Critika’s picture in his house.

As soon as they arrived at the house, they found padlocks on the doors. They had to break them to discover the ten bodies spread out in the house. Four other members of the Mawooa family were found dead in the house; Critika’s brother, Ravi (36), her sister, Chinta (30), their mother, Coontee (69), and her son, Devesh Nunkumar (11). Rajesh Dhayam’s body was also found in the house. Hervé Janvier, a tramp aged around 50, was also found among the dead bodies.

Maya Jhowry and her two children, Khesha (17) and Bhavesh (15) were found dead in the house as well. Maya had left her marital home on 22nd July after making a statement at the police station of Long Mountain stating that her marriage with Suchit Jhowry was not going well.

However, according to people around them, Critika had a strong influence on Maya. They had met at the Victoria Hotel where they used to work together as beauticians. Maya was a strong believer and practising member of a branch of Hare Rama Hare Krishna. But one of her relatives admits, “Overnight Maya suddenly abandoned all her habits to follow the precepts of her new guide, Critika.” On Critika’s side, people say that she has always been involved in strange religious rites.

Maya is also said to have vouched for the Mawooa family. According to one of her relatives, she took a certain number of loans for Critika and paid them back. In August 2003, Maya is said to have enrolled Critika and her sister and brother as shareholders of a credit union in Long Mountain. They vouched for each other and finally succeeded in obtaining a total loan of Rs 76,000.

The few details the investigators have on this massacre indicate that it is the result of Critika, a desperate woman gnawed at by her problems since her childhood, being caught up in the precepts of an international sect. Likewise, everything points to the fact that the other people were caught up in this suicidal fever.

The letter, the traces of cyanide… Everyone seemed to be ready for death at Béchard Lane.

However, there is still mystery around these deaths at St Paul. Although the police are seriously investigation the theory of the international sect, they are not neglecting any clues such as the fact that the doors were all closed from the outside when they arrived on the premises.

The police will thus continue their enquiry on the cause of this dramatic event. Unfortunately, the victims may have taken their secrets – and the real cause of all this – to their graves…

“The few details the investigators have on this massacre indicate that it is the result of Critika, a desperate woman gnawed at by her problems, being caught up in the precepts of an international sect.”

https://wwrn.org/articles/12143/