Gurmeet Ram Rahim, jailed for raping two women disciples, walks out on 30-day parole

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the chief of Dera Sacha Sauda serving a 20-year jail term for raping two women disciples, walked out of Sunaria jail in Rohtak on Tuesday morning, May 26, after being granted a 30-day parole.
 

This marks the 16th time Ram Rahim has been released from prison since his conviction in 2017.
 

According to Dera spokesperson and advocate Jitender Khurana, the Dera chief will stay at the sect’s headquarters in Sirsa during the parole period.
 

The latest parole comes just months after he was granted a similar release in January this year. Earlier, he had been granted a 40-day parole in August 2025, a 21-day furlough in April 2025, and another 30-day parole in January 2025 ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections.
 

In October 2024, days before the Haryana Assembly polls, Ram Rahim was granted a 20-day parole. He had also received a 21-day furlough in August 2024 and a three-week furlough in February 2022 shortly before the Punjab Assembly elections.
 

Several Sikh organisations, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, have earlier criticised the repeated grant of parole and furlough to the Dera chief.
 

In March this year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Ram Rahim in the 2002 murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, seven years after a special CBI court had convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
 

Earlier, in May 2024, the high court had also overturned another special CBI court verdict and acquitted Ram Rahim and four others in the 2002 murder case of the sect’s former manager Ranjit Singh.
 

The Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda commands a significant following across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and several other states. In Haryana, the sect has a sizeable support base in districts including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.