Setting aside a special CBI court’s life imprisonment order, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday acquitted Sirsa’s Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan and four others in the murder case of former dera manager Ranjit Singh.
A division bench comprising Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Lalit Batra passed the orders while allowing the dera chief’s appeal against his conviction in the 2002 murder case. In October 2021, he and four others were awarded a life term by the CBI court in Panchkula while he was also asked to pay a fine of Rs 31 lakh in the case.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who is also serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples, is currently lodged in Rohtak’s Sunaria jail. “The high court has acquitted him in the Ranjit Singh murder case,” his lawyer Jitender Khurana said.
The controversial preacher is serving sentences in the rape cases as well as for the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhattarpati. He had filed appeals against all the convictions before the high court.
Ranjit Singh was shot dead on July 10, 2002, at Khanpur Kolian village in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, allegedly on the directions of the dera chief as he was suspected of circulating an incriminating anonymous letter, in which it was narrated how the preacher was sexually exploiting women who joined the dera.
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