Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples and is currently lodged in Haryana’s Rohtak’s Sunaria jail, has again been granted a 40-day parole, sources said on Sunday.
His latest parole comes months after he was granted a similar parole in August last year.
Singh will be released from prison for the 15th time since he was convicted in 2017.
The head of Dera Sacha Sauda is serving a 20-year prison sentence in 2017 for raping two of his disciples.
Singh and three others were convicted in 2019 of murdering the journalist more than 16 years ago. He was granted a 21-day leave in April 2025 and a 30-day parole in January 2025, ahead of the Delhi polls on 5 February.
He was similarly granted a 20-day parole on 1 October 2024, days before the 5 October assembly in Haryana.
In August 2024, Singh was given a 21-day leave. He was also granted a three-week leave from 7 February 2022, barely two weeks before the Punjab assembly elections.
Before his most recent parole, Singh had been out of prison 14 times since his 2017 conviction.
Sikh organizations such as the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee have criticized the granting of relief to Singh in the past.
In May 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Singh and four others of the 2002 murder of former sect manager Ranjit Singh, citing a “tainted and sketchy” investigation into the matter.
Earlier, a special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in this case. It found Singh guilty of forming a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.
On many of the 13 occasions in the past when Singh was out of jail, he stayed at the Dera ashram in Uttar Pradesh’s Bagpat district.
Headquartered in Sirsa, Dera Sacha Sauda has a number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. In Haryana, the Dera has a significant following in many districts, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.
