Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh convicted in Ranjit Singh murder case

A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court in Panchkula convicted Ram Rahim Singh and five other accused in the murder of Ranjit Singh.

New Delhi: Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Friday (October 8) was convicted in Ranjit Singh murder case. 

A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Court in Panchkula convicted Ram Rahim Singh and four other accused in the murder of Ranjit Singh.

Ranjit Singh, a supporter of Ram Rahim was killed on July 10, 2002. On December 3, 2003, the CBI had registered an FIR in the murder case. 

The special CBI court will announce the sentence of all the culprits on October 12. 

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is serving a 20-year jail term in the rape case of two of his women disciples. He was convicted in August 2017 by a special CBI court in Panchkula.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had dismissed a plea seeking the transfer of the murder trial against Ram Rahim Singh from the CBI court in Panchkula to any other CBI court this week.  

In September this year, the Punjab police had denied reports of giving clean chit to Dera Sacha Sauda chief in a 2015 case of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib. He was named as an accused in a case that pertains to the theft of a ''bir'' (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib from the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala Gurdwara.

In 2019, Dera Sacha Sauda chief and three others were pronounced guilty of the murder of journalist Ramchandra Chhatrapati. Chhatrapati had published an anonymous letter about the sexual exploitation of women by Ram Rahim Singh at his ashram.

(With agency inputs)