After rape, murder? Trouble not over for convicted godman

CHANDIGARH: Self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was on Monday sent to 20 years in jail for raping two disciples but this is just the beginning of legal troubles for the flamboyant sect leader.

Ram Rahim has two cases of planning murder pending against him. The CBI is also looking into the charges that he ordered castration of 400 followers at Sirsa dera. The murder conspiracy trials are in finals stages in the CBI court in Panchkula that on August 25 found him guilty of rape.

“Arguments are in final stages in both the cases and the trial could be over by the end of the year,” a lawyer associated with the cases said. If found guilty, he faces life imprisonment.

One of the cases is that of a Sirsa-based journalist, Ram Chandra Chhatrapati, who was killed in 2002. He was the editor of a local evening newspaper, Poora Sach (Complete Truth). Chhatrapati was shot allegedly by dera followers at his home in October 2002 and died in a hospital a month later. He was killed for writing about the “wrongdoings” inside the dera, the CBI has said. It was Chhatrapati who first published the anonymous letter that talked about rapes and sexual harassment faced by women disciples at hands of the sect leader.

The letter formed the base of the rape trial against dera chief.

The second case is that of Ranjit Singh, a dera follower, who, too, is suspected to have been killed for exposing sexual exploitation of women. The CBI opened probe into the charges of castration in December 2014.

A Fatehabad resident, Hansraj, alleged that he and other dera followers were castrated on the orders of the dera head.