Punjab nod to trial of dera chief in 3 sacrilege cases

The Punjab Government has given sanction to prosecute Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the three main sacrilege incidents of 2015 that had caused outrage among the Sikhs, leading to protests, clashes and the death of two protesters in police firing.

The sanction comes three days after the Supreme Court vacated a stay on the prosecution of the controversial dera head. The Punjab Government had moved the Supreme Court seeking vacation of the stay, allowed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in March.

The dera head is already convicted in a rape and murder case in Haryana. Three days before the October 5 Assembly election in Haryana, he was released on a 20-day parole by the BJP government.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who holds the Home portfolio, approved the sanction on Monday evening. The prosecution sanction was caught in legal hurdles as a four-member special investigation team (SIT), led by ADGP SPS Parmar, indicted him in July 2022 as one of the main conspirators in the sacrilege cases. He was among the 12 persons, mainly dera followers, indicted for the three sacrilege incidents by the SIT. These cases were registered under Section 295 of the IPC, which warrants sanction for prosecution by the government in such cases. A senior police official explained to The Tribune that the prosecution sanction from the highest authority in the state was a legal requirement for the trial in cases of religious hurt. This is required to avoid misuse of the law, he said.

The first of the three cases took place on June 1, 2015, when a Bir of Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from a gurdwara in Burj Jawahar Ke village in Faridkot. The second case was regarding affixing of two posters, one on September 24 and another on September 25, 2015, containing objectionable language against the Sikh religion, outside a gurdwara in Bargari village, Faridkot. The posters threatened the Sikh community for objecting to the release of the film ‘MSG2’ (based on the dera head’s life).

The third incident also took place in Bargari on October 12, 2015, when Angs (pages) of the stolen Bir of Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Ke village were found strewn around in the village. The non-prosecution of the dera head in the sacrilege cases was a big political issue in Punjab. The AAP government faced flak for the delay. Apart from the opposition, its own MLA Kunwar Vijay Pratap criticised the delay. Pratap, a former IPS officer, had investigated the police firing incidents on people protesting the sacrilege incidents.