High Court clears Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in journalist murder case
India Today
Confirming the development, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's lawyer Jitender Khurana said the High Court set aside the conviction in the 2002 journalist murder case.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of a journalist, more than seven years after a special CBI court had convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Confirming the development, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s lawyer Jitender Khurana said the High Court set aside the conviction in the case. “The court has acquitted him in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati,” Khurana said.
Singh and three others — Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh and Krishan Lal — had been convicted by a special CBI court in 2019 for the murder of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati’s murder and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Dera chief had challenged the verdict before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had heard the appeal and reserved its judgment earlier.
Chhatrapati, who ran the newspaper Poora Sach, was shot dead outside his house in Haryana’s Sirsa in October 2002. The attack came after his publication carried an anonymous letter that alleged sexual exploitation of women followers at the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters.
Despite the acquittal in the murder case, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh continues to serve a 20-year jail sentence after being convicted in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. Following that conviction, he was lodged in Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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