[ads1]
Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was Friday found guilty of raping two ‘sadhvis’ (female followers) in 2002. The Panchkula court will decide the quantum of punishment on Monday.
The Dera chief could face up to seven years in jail in the rape case. He has been taken into custody by the Haryana Police and moved to Ambala jail.
According to media reports, police is ready with pellet guns near the Panchkula court if the situation goes out of control as lakhs of followers of Ram Rahim have been camping in Panchkula for last three days. The Haryana government had advised Panchkula residents to stay indoors. About 1.5 lakh Dera followers have gathered in Panchkula and Sirsa, two strongholds of the leader.
[ecp code=”4″]
The charges against Gurmeet Ram Rahim date back to 2002, when a Dera sadhvi wrote an anonymous letter to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee saying she was raped by the Dera chief. In the letter, the sadhvi also accused Gurmeet Ram Rahim of raping several other female followers inside the sprawling Dera campus on the outskirts of Sirsa in the state of Haryana.
Following the letter, a case was registered by the CBI against the self-styled godman after allegations of sexual exploitation of the sadhvis. The sadhvis reportedly made shocking allegations against Ram Rahim and two of them accused him of having raped them on account of ‘purity’. The hearing in the case has been on since 2007 when the CBI filed a chargesheet against the Dera chief.
The Dera chief consistently called the charges false and baseless and has told the court that he is “not capable of” engaging in physical relations.
He also faces trial in another case involving the murder of a journalist, Ram Chander Chhatrapati and his follower Ranjit Singh in 2002.
[ads2]