Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim granted 21-day furlough

Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been granted a 21-day furlough, official sources said on Tuesday.
During his temporary release period, Singh will go to the dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district.
The chief of the Sirsa-headquartered dera was granted temporary release days after the Punjab and Haryana high court disposed of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) petition against his temporary release.
The high court on August 9 observed that a plea for temporary release by the dera chief should be considered by the competent authority without any “arbitrariness or favouritism”.
In June, the dera chief Singh moved the high court and sought directions to grant him a 21-day furlough.
On February 29, the high court directed the Haryana government not to grant further parole to the Dera Sacha Sauda chief without its permission.
He had been granted a 50-day parole on January 19.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim is serving a 20-year sentence for raping two of his followers and is lodged in the Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak district.
He was sentenced in 2017.
The dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist 16 years ago.
In May, the high court acquitted him and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect’s former manager, Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations.
A special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the 20-year-old murder case. He had been held guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.
Temporary release of Dera Sacha Sauda chief:
•October 24, 2020: Emergency parole for one day.
•May 21, 2021: Emergency parole for a day.
•February 7 to 28, 2022: Furlough for 21 days.
•June 17 to July 18, 2022: Parole for 30 days.
•October 15, 2022, to November 25, 2022: Parole for 40 days.
•January 21, 2023, to March 3, 2023: Parole for 40 days.
•July 20, 2023, to August 20, 2023: Parole for 30 days.
•November 21, 2023, to December 13, 2023: Furlough for 21 days.
•January 19, 2024, to March 10, 2024: Parole for 50 days.
•August 13, 2024, to September 2, 2024: Furlough for 21 days.
Time spent out of jail so far: 235 days.