Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Granted 30-Day Parole

Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was released from a jail in Haryana's Rohtak on Tuesday after being granted a 30-day parole, a development which came ahead of the February 5 Delhi assembly polls.

The 57-year-old Singh headed to his Sirsa-headquartered Dera in Haryana after walking out of the Sunaria jail in Rohtak, sources said. It is for the first time that Singh has visited the Dera in Sirsa ever since he was sentenced to jail in 2017 in the rape case.

Earlier, he used to stay at the Dera ashram in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat during his parole. One of the Dera chief's counsel said he has been granted 30-day parole. Singh is expected to stay at Sirsa for ten days and at the Bhagpat ashram for the remaining days.

After reaching the Dera in Sirsa, Singh released a video message for his followers, asking them not to visit the Dera. A police official from Sirsa also confirmed that Singh has reached the Dera there. Singh is serving a 20-year sentence given in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. His parole comes days ahead of the polls in Delhi.

Last time, Singh was granted a 20-day parole on October 1 last year. That had also come ahead of the October 5 Haryana assembly polls. In the past, some of Singh's paroles and furloughs have coincided with polls in Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring states.

Sikhs organisations like the SGPC have in the past criticised the grant of relief to Singh. In August last 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 here 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.

The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. In Haryana, the Dera has a sizable number of followers in many districts, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.