Guwahati: Dera Sacha Sauda leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was granted a 40-day parole on Saturday.
The leader of Dera Sacha Sauda is incarcerated at Rohtak’s Sunaria Jail for 20 years after being convicted of rape and murder.
He was released on Saturday after completing the necessary documentation. Earlier, he was out on parole for 40 days in October 2022.
“The Dera chief’s families have submitted an application to the jail authorities seeking month-long parole for Ram Rahim on his behalf but it will be decided by the court and commissioner for how many days he will get parole and where will he stay during this time,” Haryana Jail Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala confirmed on Friday.
Notably, the Dera chief was also given parole before to the Adampur Assembly byelection and the Haryana panchayat election.
Rahim received a month’s worth of parole on June 17.
Since 2017, he has been detained in Haryana’s Sunaria jail, where he is completing a 20-year sentence for the rape of two female devotees in the Sirsa headquarters of his ashram. The Dera leader received a three-week leave of absence earlier in February.
A furlough is a brief temporary release of prisoners from jail, whereas parole refers to the release of a prisoner either temporarily for a specified purpose or totally before the expiration of a sentence, on the promise of good behaviour.
A special CBI court in Panchkula found him guilty of raping two of his devotees in August 2017.
According to the High Court of Punjab and Haryana’s 2003 orders, the CBI had opened an inquiry into the case that had previously been opened at Police Station Sadar in Kurukshetra.
It was alleged that Ranjit Singh, a resident of village Khanpur Kolian, Kurukshetra was murdered on July 10, 2002, when he was working in his fields at village Khanpur Kolian of District Kurukshetra in Haryana.
Following an extensive investigation, the CBI submitted a charge sheet in 2007 against six defendants, charges were made in 2008, and on October 8, 2021, the court found Rahim and four other defendants guilty of the murder of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh.