The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, his lawyer Jitender Khurana said.
The high court cleared the Dera chief of the charges more than seven years after he had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case.
Khurana said that "The high court division bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu on Saturday acquitted him in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati.”
The division bench delivered the verdict while hearing appeals that challenged the 2019 conviction in the case, he added. However, the court upheld the conviction of three other accused in the case, Khurana said. The journalist’s son, Anshul Chhatrapati, said he would challenge the verdict before the Supreme Court.
Ram Rahim and three others had been convicted by a special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Panchkula in January 2019 for the murder of the journalist in Sirsa, Haryana.
Chhatrapati was shot outside his house in October 2002 after his newspaper Poora Sach published an anonymous letter alleging sexual exploitation of women followers at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.
The journalist later died of his injuries. A case was registered in which Ram Rahim was named as a conspirator. The investigation was handed over to the CBI in 2006. The Dera chief is currently lodged in Sunaria jail, Rohtak. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence awarded in 2017 for raping two of his disciples.
Anshul Chhatrapati described the acquittal as a setback for his family.
"It is a setback for us, but whatever legal remedies we have, we will use them. We will challenge this verdict in the Supreme Court. We expect that the investigating agency, CBI, would also challenge the high court verdict," he said.
In May 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had also acquitted Ram Rahim and four others in the 2002 murder case of the sect’s former manager Ranjit Singh, saying the investigation was “tainted and sketchy”.
Earlier, a special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in that case, holding Ram Rahim guilty of criminal conspiracy along with the co-accused.
Also read: Why India loves its godmen
Follow us
