HC adjourns Dera head's bail plea to Aug 20

Chandigarh, Aug 17: Punjab and Haryana High Court today adjourned to August 20 the hearing of the bail pleas filed by Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in murder and sexual exploitation cases in which the CBI has chargesheeted him.

The pleas filed yesterday by the Sirsa-based Dera chief seeking anticipatory bail and stay on arrest in the CBI cases were listed for preliminary hearing today, but the hearing was adjoruned by Justice Surya Kant to August 20.

The chargesheets were filed against the Dera chief in the court Special CBI judge, Ambala on July 31, 2007.

The cases have been filed against the petitioner for alleged involvement in rape of female inmates of the dera and the murders of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and a former Dera devotee Ranjit Singh, a young farmer from village Khanpur Kaulian district Kurukashetra in Haryana.

It took about five years for the CBI to conclude the probe into all these cases and in all the three cases, the petitioner Baba Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh was identified as an accused among others.

Incidentally, the controversial Dera chief was already on an interim anticipatory bail in connection with a case of blasphemy registered at Bathinda in Punjab for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikhs by emulating the tenth Guru Gobind Singh during a baptisation ritual of the sect.

UNI