GG News Bureau
Chandigarh, 29th May. Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the head of Dera Sacha Sauda, has been acquitted in a 22-year-old murder case today by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court cited lapses in the investigation and the lack of solid evidence against the accused as the grounds for the acquittal.
Highlighting areas of investigation deemed “tainted and sketchy,” the court pointed to discrepancies in evidence related to the weapon used for the murder, ballistic reports, postmortem report, and polygraph test, which failed to substantiate the prosecution’s claims in the murder of former sect manager Ranjit Singh. The judges emphasized the necessity for a thorough and objective analysis of evidence by courts in cases of this nature.
Currently serving a 20-year sentence for the rape of two disciples and facing a 16-year-old murder case, Gurmeet Ram Rahim was implicated in the murder of Ranjit Singh due to his alleged involvement in the circulation of an anonymous letter exposing the sexual exploitation of women at the Dera headquarters. In October 2021, Ram Rahim and four others were convicted by a CBI court in Panchkula, Haryana, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is presently incarcerated in Rohtak, Haryana.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s earlier conviction in 2017 for the rape cases had triggered widespread violence and arson in parts of Punjab and Haryana, resulting in thirty fatalities, over 250 injuries, and necessitating the intervention of the Army.
The bench of Justices Sureshwar Thakur and Lalit Batra remarked that the investigation into the crime had been influenced by media scrutiny, leading to a flawed and inadequate inquiry by the investigating officers.
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