In 2021, a CBI court convicted Ram Rahim Singh of the murder case and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim of the murder of a former Dera officer. Ranjit Singh, a member of the Dera’s state committee, was killed in 2002. It is said that the murder was motivated by his suspected involvement in the distribution of an anonymous letter detailing Ram Rahim’s sexual exploitation of women at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa, Haryana.
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In 2021, a CBI court convicted Ram Rahim and four others of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. The special court ruled that it was shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the Dera chief was enraged by the letter’s publication and conspired with the other suspects to murder Ranjit Singh. Dera’s 56-year-old chief had disputed the conviction in the high court. The four others convicted by the CBI court were also acquitted today.
The notorious Dera chief is in jail after being convicted of raping two sadhvis at the dera and murdering journalist Ram Chander Prajapati, who had extensively written on the Dera chief’s sexual assault charges.
The Dera Sacha Sauda made headlines when horrifying sexual assault allegations against Gurmeet Ram Rahim surfaced, prompting the CBI to launch an investigation. The Dera leader claimed to be impotent in 2014, a decade after the investigation began, but the court disregarded his allegation. His 2017 conviction provoked widespread riots and arson. Thirty people killed, more than 250 were injured, and the Army was called in to help contain the situation. Ram Rahim is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence and has filed a high court appeal against his conviction.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s lawyers today welcomed the high court’s decision and stated that the Dera chief has entire faith in the justice.
