Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh granted 40-day parole

Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a prison sentence in Haryana's Sunaria jail, has been granted parole for 40 days, official sources said on Friday.

The move comes just ahead of the Adampur by-poll, which is scheduled to be held on November 3.

The Dera chief had earlier come out of prison on month-long parole in June.

Prior to that, he was granted three weeks' furlough in February.

The sect chief is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two women disciples at his ashram in Sirsa, where the Dera is headquartered.

He was convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in August 2017.

He was last year also convicted along with four others for hatching a conspiracy to kill Ranjit Singh, a Dera manager, in 2002. The Dera chief and three others were convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.

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