Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim acquitted in journalist murder case

File image of Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. | Photo Credit: ANI

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has acquitted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of a journalist, the sect chief’s lawyer Jitender Khurana said on Saturday, March 7, 2026.

The court acquitted the Dera chief more than seven years after he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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“The court acquitted him in the murder case of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati,” Khurana said.

Singh and three others were convicted of killing the journalist in Haryana’s Sirsa in 2019. Chhatrapati was shot outside his home in October 2002 after his newspaper ‘Poora Sach’ published an anonymous letter describing allegations of sexual abuse against his female followers at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.

Singh is also serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping two of his students in 2017. After his conviction in the case, he was sent to Sunaria jail in Haryana’s Rohtak.