GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 13th August. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the chief of Dera Sacha Sauda and a convicted rapist, has been granted a 21-day furlough, according to official sources on Tuesday. During this period of temporary release, Singh is expected to visit the Dera ashram located in Barnawa, Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh.
This decision comes shortly after the Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed a petition by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) challenging Singh’s temporary release. The High Court, in its August 9 ruling, emphasized that any request for temporary release should be evaluated by the competent authority without any “arbitrariness or favouritism.”
Singh, who had previously sought a 21-day furlough from the High Court in June, is currently serving a 20-year sentence for the rape of two of his disciples. He has been incarcerated at the Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak district since his conviction in 2017. In addition to his rape conviction, Singh and three others were found guilty in 2019 for the murder of a journalist over 16 years ago.
Earlier this year, the High Court had directed the Haryana government not to grant any further parole to Singh without its explicit permission. Despite this, he was granted a 50-day parole on January 19.
In a separate development, the High Court in May acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect’s former manager, Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations. Previously, a special CBI court had sentenced Singh to life imprisonment in this nearly 20-year-old murder case, finding him guilty of orchestrating a criminal conspiracy.
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