DERA CHIEF RAM RAHIM GETS BAIL
Sirsa dera head is also serving 20yr jail for raping 2 female followers
PANCHKULA:A special CBI court in Panchkula on Friday granted bail to incarcerated Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, in the forcible castration case of his followers. However, the Dera chief, who is serving 20-year imprisonment in Rohtak’s Sunaria Jail for raping his two women disciples, will remain in jail. He was awarded the jailterm in August last year.
The Dera chief is also facing legal proceedings in two murder cases of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and former Dera manager Ranjit Singh.
On September 27 this year, Ram Rahim had moved a bail application before special CBI judge Jagdeep Singh, almost a month after his first bail plea was rejected by CBI special chief judicial magistrate Kapil Rathi on August 23.
The special CBI court here had framed charges against jailed Ram Rahim and two accused doctors, MP Singh and Pankaj Garg, in the case on August 3. Both the accused doctors are on bail. Meanwhile, during the hearing on August 23, the court granted permission to co-accused Dr Pankaj Garg to attend a medical conference in London from November 3 to November 11.
While Ram Rahim was charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the two doctors, believed to be involved in the castration process, were charged under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 326 of the IPC.
‘PRINTING PRESS, HOSPITALS USED FOR CASTRATION’
The CBI, in its chargesheet filed in February this year, said that mass castrations took place at the Dera’s old printing press building in Sirsa and two charity hospitals — Shah Satnamji Speciality Hospital in Sirsa and Shah Satnamji General Hospital at Ram Rahim’s ancestral Gurusar Modia village in Rajasthan.
As per the CBI chargesheet, a Dera follower-turned-complainant had submitted a list containing names of 166 Dera followers who were allegedly castrated at the behest of Ram Rahim at dera properties, including the main headquarters in Sirsa in early 2000.
The CBI claimed that 128 of the allegedly castrated followers were contacted and examined during the probe.
Six of them became CBI’s main witness who deposed against the Dera chief and revealed that they were castrated at his behest by Dr Singh and Dr Garg.
PROBE WAS HANDED TO CBI IN 2014
Handing over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation in December 2014, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had rapped the Haryana Police for letting “grass to grow under its feet” and conducting “worthless investigation” in the case allegedly involving Ram Rahim.
The order came nearly two years after petitioner Hans Raj Chauhan of Fatehabad district alleged that the followers were castrated after giving them the false hope that “males who would get castrated would be able to achieve God through Ram Rahim”.