Chandigarh [India], March 7 : The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday acquitted rape convict and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the journalist Ramchandra Chhatrapati's murder case, the self-styled godman's lawyer confirmed.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim was accused of orchestrating the killing of Ramchandra Chhatrapati, a Sirsa-based journalist, for openly criticising the Dera chief in his newspaper. In 2019, a Special CBI court found him guilty and pronounced life imprisonment in the case.
Along with Ram Rahim, three other convicts - Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh and Krishan Lal - were also found guilty in the murder case and were awarded life imprisonment. The court had also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each.
Today, a division bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Vikram Aggarwal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court delivered the verdict, acquitting Ram Rahim.
However, Ram Rahim has been serving a 20-year imprisonment since 2017 and is lodged in Sunaria jail in Rohtak for being convicted of raping two of his disciples.
On 25 August 2017, more than 40 people died, and dozens were injured after violence broke out in Panchkula and other towns of Haryana after his followers clashed with security forces following the conviction of Ram Rahim in the rape case.
Meanwhile, in 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief and four others in the 2002 murder case of a former Dera official.
The Special CBI court of Panchkula had sentenced all the accused, including Gurmeet Ram Rahim and four others, to life imprisonment in the murder case of Dera manager Ranjit Singh.
It was alleged that Ranjit Singh, a resident of village Khanpur Kolian, Kurukshetra, was murdered on July 10, 2002, when he was working in his fields at village Khanpur Kolian of District Kurukshetra in Haryana.
Notably, rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was released from jail in January this year after being granted a 40-day parole, officials said. This is not the first instance of parole granted to the self-styled godman, whose temporary releases in the past have drawn political criticism and security concerns.