Self styled ‘Godman’ Gurmeet Ram Rahim was sentenced to life for the murder of a journalist in 2002. The saint and 3 close aids were sentenced at a panchkula court. Ram Rahim joined the special court proceedings via a video conference from the jail.
The journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati was shot in October 2002 after his newspaper ‘Poora Sach’ published an anonymous letter narrating how women were exploited within the premises of the Dera headquarters in Sirsa. The case was registered in 2003 and later handed over to the CBI in 2006. Gurmeet Ram Rahim was named the main conspirator in the journalist’s murder case.
Ram Rahim 51, is already serving a jail term of 20 years in another case after his conviction in 2017. His arrest that time triggered riots which killed over 30 people.
Today there was elaborate security arrangements in in Panchkula and Sirsa, the Dera’s headquarters. The Government of Haryana had requested the court yesterday for the Dera chief to appear via video conference due to law and order issues.