Of dera monstrosity and family torn asunder

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, September 9

Septuagenarian Ved Prakash is a broken man. He has not seen his younger son for 15 years, barring the latter’’s 15-minute visit to the crematorium three years ago when he lost his wife.

Prakash’s accupressure clinic-cum-residence no longer displays pictures of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh whom the family revered as God, till he was pronounced guilty of raping two dera “sadhvis”, then minors.

One of them (Prosecutrix B in court records) was married to Prakash’s son in 2000. His elder son settled abroad, Prakash was at that time only too happy to have found for his younger son a pretty girl, who too belonged to a family of Premis (dera devotees). As was the practice, devotees would take their newly weds to the “Baba” for blessings at a congregation addressed by him every Sunday. But the young bride wouldn’t hear of it.

“I thought she was unwell. So I asked my son to accompany me and my wife to the dera. But he too declined, declaring that neither he nor his wife would ever go there,” Prakash told The Tribune. Baffled, the elderly couple continued to visit the dera until a visit by a CBI team rocked their boat. To their horror, they learnt that one of the complainants against the dera chief was their bahu.

“The CBI sleuths, some of them women, were closeted with my son and his wife in their room for hours. Even though I was aware that the High Court had ordered a CBI probe following an anonymous letter alleging rape of sadhvis by “Guruji” and that my bahu had been a dera “sadhvi”, not for a moment did I suspect she could be one of the complainants.

“When DSP Satish Dagar, who was leading the CBI team, came out, he requested for a glass of water.

As my wife turned towards the kitchen, I asked him what was going on. It was then that the officer revealed it all,” recalled Prakash.

Dumbstruck, he was told his son had shown extraordinary maturity and magnanimity in supporting his wife and that he must do likewise. He refused to believe his children. How could “Guruji” have done any wrong? But the officer told him there was no room for doubt.

Life was never the same after that. The fear of disrepute and breaking away from the dera of which his family had been a part for decades stopped Prakash from backing his son and his wife who thereafter left home never to return. Dera officials reportedly tried to lure away the victim’s husband with a showroom and a flat at the dera headquarters with an assured income, but in vain. “They knew if he backed out, the girl, whose parents they had already won over, would not be able to stand up to them,” explained sources.

The courageous couple chose to severe ties with their kin and lived in anonymity for years, even as Prakash, perhaps cowed by the dera, deposed against his bahu in court.

Skeletons buried inside premises

Sirsa: Ahead of the search and sanitation operations, Dera Sacha Sauda newspaper “Sach Kahoon” admitted that human remains were buried inside the premises. Defending the action, it said this was done on the instructions of the sect chief who was against ashes of his deceased followers being immersed in rivers, thereby polluting these. The newspaper claimed that human remains were buried within the campus and trees planted atop. There are allegations that Ram Rahim would eliminate his opponents and bury the bodies inside the sprawling 700-acre dera.