Rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim gets another 40-day parole

Chandigarh: Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples and is lodged in Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak, has again been granted a 40-day parole, sources said on Sunday.

This comes months after he was granted a similar 40-day parole in August last year. Singh was sentenced in 2017 to 20 years in prison for raping two of his disciples.

The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years earlier.

Besides the parole granted in August last year, Singh received a 21-day furlough in April and a 30-day parole in January, ahead of the February 5 Delhi Assembly polls, reported PTI. He was also allowed a 20-day parole on October 1, 2024, days before the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections.

In August 2024, Singh was granted another 21-day furlough. Earlier, he was allowed a three-week furlough from February 7, 2022, barely two weeks before the Punjab Assembly polls.

Before his latest parole, Singh had come out of prison 14 times since his conviction in 2017.

Sikh organisations, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, have in the past criticised the repeated relief granted to Singh.

On many of these occasions, while out of jail, he stayed at the Dera’s ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district.

The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has followers across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and other states, with a significant presence in districts such as Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, and Hisar.