Chandigarh, March 7 The Punjab and Haryana High Court has acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of a journalist, lawyer Jitender Khurana said on Saturday.
The court acquitted the Dera chief more than seven years after he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
"The court has acquitted him in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati," Khurana said.
Singh and three others were convicted in 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 detailing the alleged sexual exploitation of female followers at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.
Singh is also serving a 20-year prison sentence, handed down in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. Following his conviction in the case, he was imprisoned in the Sunaria jail in Rohtak, Haryana.