Chandigarh, March 7 – The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Saturday acquitted self-proclaimed godman and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in 2002.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping two of his disciples and a life sentence for the murder of journalist Chhatrapati.
His acquittal comes seven years after a special CBI court convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment. However, he will remain in prison due to his conviction in the rape case.
The verdict was delivered by a Division Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Vikram Aggarwal while hearing appeals challenging the 2019 conviction in the case.
However, the Bench dismissed the appeals filed by two other accused.
The acquittal of the self-proclaimed godman comes weeks after the Bench reviewed the evidence following controversy over the bullets allegedly used in the crime.
In 2019, a special CBI court in Panchkula, Haryana, convicted Rahim Singh for the murder of journalist Chhatrapati, who was based in Sirsa. Three other individuals, Krishan Lal, Kuldeep Singh, and Nirmal Singh, who were close associates of the sect chief, were also convicted by the court.
Chhatrapati was shot in October 2002 and died later. The CBI registered the case on the orders of the High Court on November 10, 2003, and took over the investigation, which was previously registered at the police station in Sirsa.
It was alleged that Chhatrapati, a journalist from Sirsa who ran a newspaper called ‘Poora Sach’, was shot at on October 24, 2002, in the evening by Kuldeep Singh and Nirmal Singh, both carpenters at Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa, at his residence in Sirsa. He died on November 21, 2002.
The state police arrested Kuldeep Singh and Nirmal Singh, and a walkie-talkie belonging to the Dera and a revolver belonging to accused Krishan Lal were recovered.
The police filed a chargesheet against Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh, and Krishan Lal in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Sirsa on December 5, 2002.
The son of the victim moved the High Court, alleging the involvement of the self-proclaimed godman in the murder of his father and requesting a transfer of the investigation to the CBI.
After a thorough investigation, the CBI found the involvement of Rahim Singh and other accused – Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh, Krishan Lal – and filed a chargesheet against them.
In January 2019, the special CBI court found Ram Rahim and the co-accused guilty of conspiring to murder the journalist and sentenced them to life imprisonment.