Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two of his disciples, walked out of Sunaria jail on Monday after being granted a 40-day parole.
This is the 15th time he has been released since his conviction in 2017.
During the parole period, Singh will stay at his Sirsa-headquartered Dera, said Dera spokesperson and advocate Jitender Khurana, PTI reported.
Singh and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.
He was last released from prison on a 40-day parole in August 2025.
Past bails for Gurmeet Ram Rahim
Earlier, he was granted a 21-day furlough in April 2025 and a 30-day parole in January 2025, ahead of the February 5 Delhi assembly polls. Similarly, Singh walked out of prison on a 20-day parole on October 1, 2024, days before the October 5 Haryana assembly polls.
In August 2024, Singh was granted a 21-day furlough. He was also permitted a three-week furlough from February 7, 2022, barely two weeks before the Punjab assembly polls.
Sikh organisations, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, have in the past criticised the grant of such relief to Singh.
In May 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect’s former manager, Ranjit Singh, citing “tainted and sketchy” investigations and overturning a special CBI court order that had sentenced them to life imprisonment. The Central Bureau of Investigation had held Singh guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.
On several of the past 14 occasions when he was released from prison, Singh stayed at the Dera’s ashram in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh.
The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a large following across Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. In Haryana, the sect has a sizeable presence in districts such as Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.
