New Delhi: Weeks ahead of Haryana panchayat elections and the Adampur assembly bypoll, Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a jail term on rape and murder charges, reached the Dera Sacha Sauda Ashram in Barnawa of Uttar Pradesh after being released from Sunaria jail on 40-day parole on Saturday. He reached Baghpat under a security cover, news agency ANI reported.
Rahim was earlier granted parole for a month on June 17. His family had submitted an application to the jail authorities seeking a month-long parole for him.
It is to be noted that Singh, who has been serving a 20-year-term for raping two women disciples at his ashram’s headquarters in Sirsa, has been lodged in Haryana’s Sunaria jail since 2017.
Ram Rahim was convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in August 2017 for raping two women followers. On October 8, 2021, the court convicted him and four others in connection with former Dera manager Ranjit Singh’s murder.
Ranjit Singh was murdered in 2002 on the premises of Dera Sacha Sauda.
It was alleged that Ranjit Singh, resident of Khanpur Kolian village, Kurukshetra was murdered on July 10, 2002, while he was working in his fields in Haryana.
After a thorough probe, CBI filed a charge sheet in the year 2007 against six accused and charges were framed in 2008.
Notably, a parole means the release of a prisoner, either temporarily for a special purpose or completely before the expiry of a sentence, on the promise of good behaviour, and a furlough is a short-term temporary release of convicts from jail.
As per law, a convict, who has completed a certain number of years of his imprisonment, can remain out of the prison for 90 days in a span of one year.