Raid launched at Dera’s Sirsa-based headquarters
SEARCH OPS Parallel currency, unregistered car among recoveries
Security agencies and district authorities began a search of the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters in Sirsa on Friday amid tight security and curfew, two weeks after its chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was jailed for raping two disciples.
The search operation was conducted under the supervision of court commissioner AKS Pawar appointed by the Punjab and Haryana high court.
Bomb disposal squads, commandos, sniffer dog and locksmiths were part of the operation that was being videographed, sources said.
A chopper with SWAT teams would monitor the ground situation with 5,000 security men drawn from 20 companies of the Central Reserve Police Force, 12 of the Sashastra Seema Bal, five of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, two of Rapid Action Force, four of the army and two of the BSF keep an eye on the law and order situation.
The high court had on September 5 ordered the search of the dera, whose followers ran riot on August 25 after the flamboyant sect chief was convicted of two counts of rape by a CBI court in Panchkula, which bore the brunt of the violence that rocked Haryana and neighbouring states.
Dera administration chairperson Vipassana, who is a close aide of the sect head, said: “We are cooperating with the local administration. All Dera weapons have been deposited with the authorities. We have nothing to hide.”
At the time of filing this report, officials had recovered cash, computers, an unregistered car, a broadcast van and parallel “plastic currency” as they began combing through the 700-acre campus .
“Some rooms have been sealed, computer hard disk drives, unregistered Lexus car, an OB van, ₹7,000 of demonetised currency, ₹12,000 cash and some pharma medicines without labels or a brand name are among other items which have been seized,” Haryana’s Information and Public Relations deputy director, Satish Mehrasaid was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
All roads leading to the dera, which is spread over 600 acres, have been sealed by paramilitary personnel and media, too, is being kept away from the premises.
Duty magistrates have been appointed for various zones of the dera, which houses a cinema hall, shopping complexes, a hospital, a stadium, a posh hotel and sprawling bungalows.
“We have formed a strategy and are hopeful that the sanitisation process will be conducted in a smooth manner,” Haryana DGP BS Sandhu had told a news agency on Thursday.
The Centre will soon set a cut off date for the states to grant tribals and other traditional forest dwellers legal title of the land they have traditionally used.
The sluggish pace at which land titles are being granted to tribals in some states, including the poll-bound Himachal, has prompted the Prime Minister’s office to nudge the tribal affairs ministry to set the deadline.
The ministry that monitors the grant of land titles under the Scheduled Tribes and the Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 or the Forest Rights Act (FRA), will set the deadline after the issue was discussed at a review meeting by PM Modi in August, government sources said.
More than a decade old, FRA was intended to “undo the historic injustice” towards tribal groups by giving them legal titles to forest land and resources. But several states are sluggish in transferring the rights to the tribals, bringing also under scrutiny the Centre’s role in monitoring and giving policy direction that would improve the efficacy of state authorities in granting land rights.
To improve the scenario, the PMO has also instructed the ministry to ensure that local authorities to act fast on complaints by tribals, whose land has been grabbed.