Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim granted 40-day parole

Jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples, has been granted a 40-day parole, sources said on Tuesday.

Singh (57) will stay at his Sirsa-headquartered Dera during the 40-day period beginning Tuesday, the sources said.

This comes months after Singh walked out of the Sunaria jail in Haryana's Rohtak after being granted a 21-day furlough in April.

In January, Singh was granted a 30-day parole, ahead of the February 5 Delhi Assembly polls.

He was also granted a 20-day parole on October 1 last year, ahead of the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls.

Singh was convicted in 2017 for raping two of his disciples.

In May last year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted the Dera chief and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect's former manager Ranjit Singh, citing "tainted and sketchy" investigations into the matter.

Earlier, a special CBI court sentenced them to life imprisonment in the nearly 20-year-old murder case. It held Singh guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.

The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. In Haryana, the Dera has a sizable number of followers in many districts, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.