According to ANI, Dera Sacha Suda leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and four others were convicted in the murder case of one of his pupils by a special CBI court in Panchkula. The court will announce the quantum punishment for the murder counts on October 12. Singh is already serving a prison sentence for rape.
On July 10, 2002, four assailants murdered Ranjit Singh, a former devotee of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, in his hometown of Khanpur Kolian in Kurukshetra. According to the CBI, he was shot because Ram Rahim suspected him of being behind the distribution of an anonymous letter exposing sexual exploitation of female followers on Dera grounds.
In August 2017, Ram Rahim Singh, a self-proclaimed godman, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for rapping two of his female followers and murdering a journalist. He is now serving a life sentence at Rohtak’s Sunaria prison.
Ram Rahim has been charged with three offences that occurred between 2002 and 2003. The Dera head has previously been found guilty of sexual abuse of female disciples and the death of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in two separate cases. The third case is the murder of Ranjit Singh, for which he was found guilty earlier today.
The Punjab and Haryana high court denied a petition for a new trial in the Ranjit Singh murder case earlier this month, calling the charges “imaginary” and based on speculation and supposition.
The high court bench stated that the trial cannot be relocated only based on apprehension and that the apprehension must be realistic rather than fictitious. As a result, the trial court was given the authority to issue a verdict, which it did on Friday, convicting Ram Rahim and four others in the murder of Ranjit Singh.