New Delhi: Gurmeet Ram Rahim used letters written by a boy to one of the Sadhvis in the Dera Ashram as a pretext to rape her. He told the Sadhvi that she need not worry about the boy who had written letters as she had already given her body and mind to Ram Rahim by becoming a Sadhvi and that he was pardoning her past mistakes by having sexual intercourse that was purifying her. This incident happened 18 years back on the very same day that a CBI judge sentenced him to 20 years rigorous imprisonment.
The Sadhvi had been told by the Ashram in-charge that the Ram Rahim known as 'Pitaji' had called her inside the Gufa. The dera in-charge — a woman by the name of Sudesh Kumari — asked the Sadhvi to go upstairs in the Gufa after ringing a bell. She rang the bell and 'Pitaji' opened the door. She wished him the Dera greeting — "Dhan Dhan Satguru Tera Hi Asra".
After asking her to sit next to him, he showed her letters addressed to her at the Dera. She had no idea who had written the letters. The letters were perhaps a strategy by Ram Rahim to be a conversation starter. Ram Rahim then asked her if she had committed any mistake in her life and she said that in her college days she knew a boy who might be trying to defame her. That was when Ram Rahim told her that she had become impure and since she had surrendered her body and mind to him, he will make her pure by having sex with her. She resisted, but he raped her.
She was raped again one year later in 2000 and Ram Rahim told her there was no use of shouting as no one outside the Gufa could hear her. It was only when she saved herself from being raped a third time that she decided to tell the entire story to her brother, a manger inside the Dera and then leave the Dera for good.
The abused Sadhvi revealed, later during investigations, that many more Sadhvis had been "purified" in this manner and had left the Dera.
The District and Sessions Judge in Sirsa was the first to red flag the Dera Sacha Sauda in 2002 when the Punjab and Haryana High Court asked him to conduct a probe into sexual abuse of Sadhvis. The judge stated that nobody in the Dera was prepared to disclose the sexual abuse of girls and there was no access to the hostel in the Dera where the Sadhvi girls were residing without permission of Gurmeet Ram Rahim or of Dera authorities. He however, asked the High Court to get the matter investigated secretly through a central agency.
The educated Sadhvis in the Dera used to teach students whereas the less educated ones took care of small children and Sadhvi teachers resided in the hostel in the old Dera. The Old Dera was where Ram Rahim resided in a Gufa and was spread over 25 acres while the new Dera was in an area of over 600 acres.
CBI could not access the Sadhvis numbering 133 who were inside the Dera complex and instead tried to locate the 24 Sadhvis who had left the Dera because of unknown reasons. They could manage to trace 20, many of who declined to come out with the truth due to fear or for the sake of the reputation of their families.
However, CBI could manage to get two Sadhvis to reveal the sordid details of what happened inside the Dera and how they were sexually abused. Their statements were recorded under Section 161 of CrPC and eventually formed the basis for conviction and sentencing of Ram Rahim to 20 years of jail.
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