Chandigarh:

Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Wednesday walked out of the Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak after he was granted a 20-day parole.

During his temporary release period, Singh will stay at the Dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat.

He came out of jail under tight security this morning after his release on parole, an official said.

The Haryana government has granted a 20-day parole to Singh while barring him from taking part in election-related activities, making speeches and staying in the state during the period.

Singh is serving a 20-year sentence given in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.

He had sought a 20-day parole ahead of the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls.

According to the parole conditions, the sect chief will not take part in any election-related activity or deliver public speeches and will stay out of Haryana during the period.

He will stay at Dera ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Barnawa (Baghpat) during the period.

The Dera chief had said that he wanted to stay in Baghpat during the parole if granted.

The jail department had recently forwarded the Dera chief’s parole plea to the office of the Haryana Chief Electoral Officer in view of the Model Code being in place for the assembly polls.

Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal had said on Monday that the Haryana government may consider Singh’s parole subject to the correctness of facts mentioned in his parole plea and satisfying other conditions with respect to the Model Code of Conduct for the elections.

Haryana goes to polls on October 5 and the results will be declared on October 8.

In the past, some of Singh’s paroles and furloughs have coincided with the polls in Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring states.

The opposition parties had criticised the grant of relief to Singh.

Earlier in August this year, Singh was granted a 21-day furlough. He was granted three weeks’ furlough from February 7, 2022 barely two weeks before the Punjab Assembly polls.

In May, the high court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect’s former manager Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations in the matter.

A special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the nearly 20-year-old murder case.

Singh had been held guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. File

Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Wednesday walked out of the Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak after he was granted a 20-day parole.

During his temporary release period, Singh will stay at the Dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat.

He came out of jail under tight security this morning after his release on parole, an official said.

The Haryana government has granted a 20-day parole to Singh while barring him from taking part in election-related activities, making speeches and staying in the state during the period.

Singh is serving a 20-year sentence given in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.

Also Read: Ram Rahim Singh: A farm to prison story of the ‘Baba of bling’

He had sought a 20-day parole ahead of the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls.

According to the parole conditions, the sect chief will not take part in any election-related activity or deliver public speeches and will stay out of Haryana during the period.

He will stay at Dera ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Barnawa (Baghpat) during the period.

The Dera chief had said that he wanted to stay in Baghpat during the parole if granted.

The jail department had recently forwarded the Dera chief’s parole plea to the office of the Haryana Chief Electoral Officer in view of the Model Code being in place for the assembly polls.

Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal had said on Monday (September 30) that the Haryana government may consider Singh’s parole subject to the correctness of facts mentioned in his parole plea and satisfying other conditions with respect to the Model Code of Conduct for the elections.

Haryana goes to polls on October 5 and the results will be declared on October 8.

In the past, some of Singh’s paroles and furloughs have coincided with the polls in Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring States.

The Opposition parties had criticised the grant of relief to Singh.

Earlier in August this year, Singh was granted a 21-day furlough. He was granted three weeks’ furlough from February 7, 2022 barely two weeks before the Punjab Assembly polls.

In May, the high court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect’s former manager Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations in the matter.

A special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the nearly 20-year-old murder case. Singh had been held guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.

Chandigarh:

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was today acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the murder case of a former Dera official. Ranjit Singh, former manager of the Dera, was murdered in 2002. A CBI court convicted Ram Rahim and four others in 2021 and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The 56-year-old Dera chief had challenged this conviction in the high court.

The controversial Dera chief is in jail after being convicted of raping two sadhvis at the dera and in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Prajapati, who had reported extensively on the sexual assault allegations against the influential Dera chief.

The Dera Sacha Sauda, the headquarters of which is located in Haryana’s Sirsa, had made headlines after shocking allegations of sexual assault surfaced against Gurmeet Ram Rahim and the CBI started investigating the matter. In 2014, a decade after the probe began, the Dera chief claimed he was impotent, but the court rejected this. Dramatic scenes played out as a massive crowd of supporters clashed with cops in the aftermath of the conviction.