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Notices issued to CBI on Sirsa sadh's plea
WSN Network
Chandigarh: The High Court of Punjab and
Haryana on Monday issued notices to the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) for August 22 and 28 respectively on the
separate petitions filed by Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
The Dera head had sought anticipatory bail and stay on his arrest in
connection with the cases of alleged conspiracy to eliminate a
journalist and a former Dera devotee, besides the rape of a ‘sadhvi’.
As the cases pertaining to involvement in murders and rape were
listed before separate judges for preliminary hearing, Justice Surya
Kant issued notice to CBI for August 22 for the case involving
conspiracy to liquidate Sirsa-based scribe Ram Chander Chhatrapati
and also Ranjit Singh of village Khanpur Kaulian some years back.
Justice Laxmi Narain Mittal, before whom the case pertaining to
charges of rape and sexual exploitation of female inmates of the
Dera was listed, issued notice to the CBI for August 28. These cases
had been investigated by CBI on the orders of the high court. The
charge sheets in this respect were filed on July 31 before the
special CBI judge in Ambala, who had summoned the petitioner to
appear on August 31.
While issuing notice to the CBI, Justice Surya Kant also directed
the chief investigating officer (CIO) of CBI, M Narayan, a DIG level
officer, to be present in the court. The statements of Khatta Singh,
the former driver of the Dera chief, as also of Sarjiwan, the sister
of deceased Ranjit Singh, made to CBI, should also to be produced,
Justice Surya Kant ordered. The stay on arrest and the anticipatory
bail has been prayed as the petitioner apprehends arrest at the
hands of CBI at Ambala when he goes there in response to court
summons. The notices were accepted by CBI’s senior standing counsel
Rajan Gupta in the court itself after he was summoned.
During the preliminary hearing, both the judges maintained that the
petitioner should have approached the lower court where the charge
sheets were filed, instead of coming to the high court. However, the
counsel for the petitioner contended that the petitioner, as per
apex court ruling, had the right to choose the court for seeking
relief.
The counsel alleged that CBI was inimical towards the petitioner and
false and fabricated cases had been registered against him by
relying on the statement of a single person. On this, Justice Surya
Kant wondered if the counsel was suggesting bias on the part of the
high court because the cases against the petitioner had been
assigned for investigation to BI by it. About the petitioner’s
apprehension about arrest, the CBI counsel pointed out that the
accused need not necessarily appear in person and could be
represented by a counsel.
Sadhvi was raped twice: Chargesheet
Ambala: The chargesheet submitted by the
CBI in the Ambala court in connection with the murder of Ranjit
Singh, at the behest of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, mentions that the
deceased’s sister, who was a ‘sadhvi’ at the Dera, was raped twice
by Gurmeet Ram Rahim. Ranjit Singh’s sister had reportedly told the
CBI that she was raped twice by the Dera chief at his ‘gufa’, once
at the new Dera and then at the old Dera a year later. She has
claimed that the Dera chief had called her to the ‘gufa’ again, but
somehow she managed to get away.
She told the CBI that she was first raped on August 28 or 29, 1999.
‘‘That day, at about 8 pm a ‘prabandhak’ told me that Baba Gurmeet
Singh had called me to the ‘gufa’. When I went there, I saw the Baba
alone. He told me to close the door and sit. When I sat on the
floor, he asked me to sit on the bed near him.
"Thereafter he forced himself upon me,’’ she told CBI. About a year
after the first incident, she was allegedly raped again at the old
Dera. When she threatened the Baba that she would tell everything to
her brother Ranjit Singh, he had told her that he would get him
killed. About five or six months after the second rape incident, she
was once again called to the ‘gufa’. ‘‘It was day time. When I went
there, the Baba was standing outside the ‘gufa’. I did not enter the
‘gufa’ but instead asked him the reason for calling her from a
distance. He tried to pull me upstairs, but I managed to escape,’’
she stated.
22 August, 2007
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