CBI files chargesheet against Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for forcible castration

The CBI today filed a charge sheet against rape convict and Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and two doctors for alleged forcible castration of 400 followers of the sect, officials said.

Ram Rahim, who is serving a 20-year jail term after being convicted in two rape cases, has been charged along with doctors Pankaj Garg and M P Singh. M P Singh, hailing from Delhi, is in judicial custody in one of the cases related to vandalism that followed the conviction of the Dera chief last year, they said.

They allegedly castrated the men at the Sirsa-based dera telling the victims that it would lead to realisation of god through the dera chief, officials said. The charge sheet has been filed in a special court in Panchkula. The agency had registered the case of alleged criminal conspiracy for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means among other charges under the Indian Penal Code against Ram Rahim and others in 2015.

The probe was handed over to the agency by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on the plea of a dera follower. "The petitioner had alleged that around 400 male devotees, including himself, belonging to Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan etc. were castrated at that place (dera) under the false claim made by the said chief/head of religious organisation (Singh) that castration would lead to realisation of god through him and thus they were emasculated through surgeries done at the behest of the chief/head of said organisation, as alleged," CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.