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The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and four others in the 2002 murder case of a former Dera official.
The Special CBI court of Panchkula had sentenced all the accused including Gurmeet Ram Rahim of Dera Sacha Sauda and four others to life imprisonment in the murder case of Dera manager Ranjit Singh. A fine of Rs 31 lakh was also imposed on Ram Rahim and Rs 50,000 on the remaining accused. A division bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Lalit Batra changed the lower court order and acquitted all the five accused today. Jatinder Khurana, lawyer of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, said, "The Honorable Punjab and Haryana High Court has changed the order of the lower court and all five people who were involved in this have been acquitted. We welcome this decision." Ram Rahim, who is also serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples, is currently lodged in Sunaria jail in Rohtak, Haryana. 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. After a thorough investigation, CBI filed a charge sheet in 2007 against six accused and charges were framed in 2008 while, on October 8, 2021, the court convicted Rahim and four others in connection with former Dera manager Ranjit Singh's murder case. (ANI)
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