Gurmeet Ram Rahim granted 21-day furlough again; has been released 13 times since 2020

Sirsa: Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was granted a 21-day furlough on Wednesday, April 9, and walked out of Sunaria jail in Rohtak. According to officials, he will stay at his main dera in Sirsa, Haryana, during this period.

This is not the first time Ram Rahim has been released temporarily. The Dera chief, who is serving a 20-year sentence for the rape and murder of two sadhvis, has been released on parole or furlough multiple times since 2020—often around election periods or religious events.

He was last granted parole in January 2025, just a week before the Delhi Assembly elections. During that period too, he stayed at the Sirsa dera.

 

In 2023 and 2024 alone, Ram Rahim was released on several occasions:

30 days in July 2023 ahead of the Haryana panchayat elections

29 days in November 2023 before the Rajasthan Assembly elections

50 days in January 2024

21 days in August 2024 ahead of the Haryana Assembly polls

20 days in October 2024 before another phase of Haryana elections

30 days in February 2025 ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections

 

 

His record of furloughs and paroles includes earlier releases too:

1-day parole in October 2020

12-hour parole in May 2021

21-day parole in February 2022 before the Punjab Assembly elections

30 days in June 2022 ahead of the Haryana Municipal Corporation elections

40 days during the Adampur Assembly bypoll in October 2022

40 days in January 2023 to attend Shah Satnam Singh’s birth anniversary

The repeated release of the controversial sect leader has drawn sharp criticism. Last year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had pulled up authorities over the frequency of his paroles and furloughs, and ruled that any future parole for Ram Rahim should not be granted without court permission.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) had also challenged his paroles in court, questioning the state’s repeated leniency toward the convicted Dera chief.