More Trouble for Dera Sacha Sauda Chief

May 27: Before quashing the tense situation over Dera chief’s acts, some new issues have surfaced and about his criminal activities few years ago. Haryana and Punjab High court has rebuked the CBI for not submitting the final report against Dera chief for indulging in three serious crimes, one for sexual exploitation and the other two cases for murder, till now. The Court has directed the Investigating Bureau to submit the final report before Aug 1. The accused has been reported as being involved in the murder of a reporter and a former Dera Manager along with seven other accused in the two cases.

After apologizing for his illicit act of dressing like the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the Dera Chief may be trapped in a criminal case. The Haryana and the Punjab High court have warned to submit the final report including the alleged murder and sexual extortion case till July 31 of this year. Dera chief is said to be involved in two separate murder cases, one in the murder of Sirsa-based reporter Ramchandra Chatterpatti and another in the murder of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh, along with seven other persons. All the seven accomplices are behind the bars in Jalandhar jail except Ram Rahim Singh. On the other hand no action has been taken regarding the sexual exploitation case.

Before this issue, Dera chief apologized for his acts. He wrote his apology letter and forwarded it on May 27, the dead line given to him from Akal Takht, the religious Sikh organization. The Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti has called a meeting of the head priests of the five Takhts for discussing the apology letter on Tuesday, May 29. The Akal Takht had warned the Dera sect to close all deras till May 27 in the state or ask forgiveness to Akal Takht for his wrong acts, which hurt the Sikh sentiments. As an answer of the threat, Dera has lodged a petition and asked for the protection of all the Deras, but the apex courts has rejected to provide security by quoting it a political matter. The next hearing of this petition will be on June 04, 2007.

Earlier in the series of the incident, Sant Agnivesh presented himself before Akal Takht and Dera as a mediator to solve the critical problem on Sunday, May 27. At the same time, Tarlochan Singh, former chairman of the National Minorities Committee has raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha and appealed to Jathedar to accept the apology letter sent by the Dera Chief. The SGPC member, Jasvinder Singh, has praised the act of apology sought by Gurmeet Singh.

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