Rohtak: Gurmeet Ram Rahim, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda and currently lodged in Sunaria Jail in Haryana’s Rohtak, has once again been granted a 40-day parole. Ram Rahim is serving sentences for raping two female followers and for the murder of a journalist.
This latest parole adds to a long series of temporary releases. He was granted a 40-day parole in August last year, followed by a 30-day parole in January, a 21-day furlough in April, and several other releases around the time of the Delhi Assembly elections.
With the current 40-day parole, Ram Rahim will step out of jail for the 15th time since his conviction in 2017.
During his earlier paroles, including the 21-day and 40-day releases, Ram Rahim stayed at the Dera Sacha Sauda ashram in Sirsa. This time too, he is expected to reside at the Sirsa Dera after his release.
A Central Bureau of Investigation court had sentenced Ram Rahim to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in each of the two rape cases involving his female followers, amounting to a total of 20 years. Subsequently, he was also convicted and sentenced in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and in the murder of Dera manager Ranjit Singh.
In 2019, Ram Rahim, along with three others, was convicted for the murder of journalist Chhatrapati, a crime committed more than 16 years earlier.
Since his conviction in 2017, Ram Rahim has been released from prison on 14 occasions. On most of these occasions, he stayed at the Dera’s ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Bagpat district.
The Dera Sacha Sauda, headquartered in Sirsa, has a sizeable following across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and several other states. In Haryana, the organisation wields considerable influence in districts such as Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.
The repeated granting of parole to Ram Rahim has drawn criticism from various quarters, with several political parties questioning the Haryana government’s decision. Journalist Chhatrapati’s son, Anshul, has also objected, stating that Ram Rahim is “not an ordinary prisoner but a hardened criminal” and questioning the justification for his repeated release.
However, the Haryana government has defended its decision before the High Court, submitting an affidavit stating that Ram Rahim does not fall under the category of a hardened criminal and is considered a prisoner with good conduct.
As per jail rules, prisoners with good conduct are eligible for parole or furlough. Under existing provisions, a prisoner can be granted up to 90 days of parole in a year, a rule the state government has cited to justify the repeated paroles granted to Ram Rahim.
With IANS inputs