She braved jail, stood trial to see Ram Rahim behind bars

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 5

Much before two former sadhvis of Dera Sacha Sauda came forward to seek justice for exploitation by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, another woman, Sudesh Kumari, had braved imprisonment for false cases while demanding a probe into an anonymous letter that mentioned rapes in the dera by its chief.

Distributing pamphlets demanding a CBI probe into the contents of the letter in Fatehabad on February 5, 2003, Sudesh Kumari and 14 other members of the Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM) were beaten up by dera men and then booked by the police in a false case of attempt to murder and rioting.

Sudesh, then 39, and others, including five women and two students, had to remain in jail for a month and a half and face the prosecution for over six years before a court acquitted them on October 6, 2009. Bhuvnesh, a Class XI student when he was arrested, had now completed his MBBS course.

“As convener of the JSM in Kurukshetra, I received a copy of the anonymous letter in June 2002 that mentioned horrifying details of rape of sadhvis in the dera. The letter shook me. A month later, Ranjit Singh, who lived in a nearby village, was shot. I learnt that he was a devotee at the dera and his sister a sadhvi. I came to know that they had left the place after the incident. When I went to their house, I came to know that his sister was one of the victims,” Sudesh said.

After the incident, Ranjit had brought his two daughters and sister back to the village and told her not to tell the incident to their parents. Presuming Ranjit to be the man behind the anonymous letter, dera goons reportedly shot him.

In the meantime, Sirsa journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, who published a story on an anonymous letter in his newspaper, was shot at on October 24, 2002. He died on November 21. Dera men were arrested on the spot in that case.

The JSM then published a four-page pamphlet and distributed its copies among the public. The pamphlet recounted circumstantial evidence of Ram Rahim’s involvement in rapes and murder.

During the Geeta Festival in 2002, Sudesh and JSM volunteers decided to distribute pamphlets and present the demand for a CBI inquiry to then Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. However, the police arrested them and freed them only after Shekhawat had left the town.

The JSM organised signature campaigns in Pipli, Sonepat, Hisar, Kaithal, Jind, Rohtak and several other places in the state. On 5 February, 2003, when Sudesh Kumari and JSM volunteers were peaceful campaign in Fatehabad to collect signatures, a dera mob attacked them, leaving women bruised.

The police came and took them to the police station on the pretext of safety. Instead, they were booked and arrested on the charge of attempt to murder. The district Bar associations of Fatehabad and Kurukshetra had passed resolutions condemning police action.