Indian guru sentenced to 20 years for rape

By

Ratnesh Dwivedi

India is city of mysticism and spiritualism where you can encounter some true spiritual figures. However, flashy Godmen have also been a part of shared history of Yantras, Tantras and Mantras. One such billionaire Godman is Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh who was under trial in a 2002 Murder and rape case. The billionaire Godman is assumed to have luxury cars, unaccounted amounts of gold and jewellery, tens of thousands of acres of land, millions of worldwide disciples and a keen interest in Bollywood films, which led him acting in couple of movies.

But for the past few days he and his thousands of disciples occupied a place in Indian media for all the wrong reasons. The story unfolded when a few days ago the towns of Panchkula and Sirsa in the Northern Indian state of Haryana, where his lavish ashram is located, were occupied by policemen and paramilitary forces as he had to be carried to an Indian CBI court for a hearing in cases of rape and murder.

His disciples had already warned that if something (framing of charges) would happen to ‘Pitaji’, as they affectionately address the Godman, they will wipe out the whole nation.

Resident of both towns and the rest of India remained glued to their TV sets while paramilitary and police forces occupied both towns and his ashram, called ‘Dera Sachcha Sauda‘, in addition to thousands of TV crews and other representatives of the media.

Things started to take a bad shape when Singh was charged in both cases and the judgement was kept with the judges to be announced on Monday. The moment charges were announced on Singh by the court his thousands of disciples took the cities of Sirsa and Panchkula, the state of Haryana and neighbouring Punjab to ransom.

They started looting both towns, torching the government, police and media vehicles, OB vans and rioting. Many media personnel were badly beaten for their duty in covering the event and were robbed. The entire city soon turned in to a disaster zone. The Police were forced to open fire and within three hours 32 people lost their lives and almost 200 were injured. The rioting continued to take place until the army occupied each corner of both towns the next morning.

The Opposition party targeted the ruling government for failing in its duty to control the situation and allowing all this to happen.

The media and India as a whole waited for the moment when the judges of an Indian court passed judgement, a decisive moment also to determine how the administration would control the situation.

Finally however the court in Sunaria jail, Rohtak, specially set up to prevent a repeat of the earlier violence, announced the verdict that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had been sentenced to 20 years in prison, 10 years for two rape cases, to be served consecutively and not concurrently. In addition to this Singh was fined by the court for separate offences including attempt to murder and criminal intimidation.

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Ratnesh Dwivedi is a seasoned Academician, Author, Journalist, NASA Certified Educator and Board Member with 15 plus years in teaching and corporate. He has seen changing face of global politics and has written extensively on International Affairs.

He serves on board of a dozen global firms ranging from Mining, Oil & Gas, Electricity, Energy,Cyber Security, Intelligence, Defence and Counter Terrorism having finest people from corporate and Gov on board.

He holds membership with global organizations such as ECREA-Brussels, Mission Essential-Virginia, Global Ethics Network-Wash, American Astronomical Society-Wash, Internet Society-Virginia, CSIS-PONI-Wash, RTDNA-Wash, NSTA-Virginia, EIN News Desk, Bush Center, Texas and Foreign Correspondent Club, Delhi.

He has authored six books. The Story of an Intern is a Reportage, The Cosmic Mask is a Space Fiction. Third and fourth are awarded academic books. His fifth book, US Intelligence and Cost of War talks about USA Military engagements in Middle East .His sixth book on manned and unmanned missions of NASA is in print.

Ratnesh Dwivedi bears the honour of attending several high rated workshops of NASA and is awarded multiple certifications from NASA.

He has set up Radio and TV Stations in India. He is widely published Author in the field of Media and Communication with 34 publications and presentations across globe with 15000 downloads, which itself is a record.

He is Director-India and Professor with Global Institute for IT & Management, New York. He serves as Country Head with Advisors Energy Group NJ and Director with Synergence and Pro Energy Trade based in Chicago, all Energy and Financing companies. He is Manager-SMXP, Australia, a mining firm. He works as Country Head with Orion Global Technologies, UK. He is India Correspondent of Tuck Magazine. He is Institutional Representative with SECINDEF-Israel, an Intelligence agency and Global Representative with Opia and D-Fence, Israel.