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Chandigarh:

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was today acquitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the murder case of a former Dera official. Ranjit Singh, former manager of the Dera, was shot dead in 2002. It is alleged that the murder was linked to his suspected role in circulating an anonymous letter that narrated how Ram Rahim was sexually exploiting women at the Dera headquarters in Haryana’s Sirsa.

In 2021, a CBI court convicted Ram Rahim and four others in the murder case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. The 56-year-old Dera chief had challenged this conviction in the high court. The four others convicted by the CBI court have also been acquitted today. 

The controversial Dera chief is in jail after being convicted of raping two sadhvis at the dera and in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Prajapati, who had reported extensively on the sexual assault allegations against the influential Dera chief.

The Dera Sacha Sauda had made headlines after shocking allegations of sexual assault surfaced against Gurmeet Ram Rahim and the CBI started investigating the matter. In 2014, a decade after the probe began, the Dera chief claimed he was impotent, but the court rejected this. His conviction in 2017 sparked violence and arson in several areas. Thirty people died, over 250 injured and the Army had to be called in to bring the situation under control. Ram Rahim is now serving a 20-year-jail term and has challenged his conviction in the high court.