#RamRahimSingh: 31 dead in violence across Haryana after Dera chief held guilty

Violence fanned out across Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and parts of Rajasthan on Friday after a special CBI court in Panchkula on Friday found Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan guilty of rape. Reports said 31 people have died, including Dera followers, in firing and clashes with police in Panchkula and elsewhere in Haryana. Among the dead, four were women and a seven-year-old boy.

A DTC bus was set ablaze in Ghaziabad’s Loni and a couple of empty bogies of Rewa Express were set on fire at Anand Vihar railway station. The violence began with Panchkula at its epicentre and soon spread to Sirsa, the headquarters of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect. An hour or so after the verdict, the almost-lakh strong group of Dera followers assembled in Panchkula turned on the media, attacking media persons and the OB vans including an NDTV engineer, said NDTV. Then, the violence spread out across Punjab and Haryana with Delhi put on high alert.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court is said to have ordered that the Dera’s properties be attached and the damages in the riots and the arson subsequent to the Singh verdict be recovered from them.

An India Today OB van and a TimesNow van have been attacked while an India Today reporter has been attacked in Sirsa. Republic TV said a power station in Sangrur in Punjab and an Income Tax office in Panchkula have been burnt down by Dera followers. The railway station in Punjab’s Malout has been set on fire, the Northern Railway said.

Our reporter on the ground said instead of preparing to contain the Dera followers, the police and the CRPF stood mute spectators while the media OB vans were being vandalised. Before the followers turned violent, police used teargas and water cannons near the Panchkula roundabout between Sector 2 and Sector 5 to disperse the agitated crowd but the police abruptly told the media to leave the scene. Some policemen joined the fleeing media contingent. The unfortunate few media personnel and the OB vans left behind at Sector 5 bore the brunt of the attacks, with the agitated followers breaking windshields and overturning the OB vans.

After the verdict was read out in the Panchkula court, the Dera chief was taken into custody. The sentencing has been scheduled on August 28, Monday. He could face up to seven years in jail. Reports said Singh is being taken to Rohtak jail by helicopter.

The Dera chief has been accused of sexually exploiting two sadhvis at the Dera’s Sirsa headquarters. The allegations came to light when in 2002, one of the victims sent an anonymous letter to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, accusing the Dera chief of sexual abuse.