September 01, 2017

Hiding crimes behind the curtains of religion

located:	India
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

It took the Indian legal system more than ten years to reach to a judgment in a case about the self-proclaimed Indian "godman" Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh raping two of his female followers in 2002.

In a country of over a billion people, people like this self-proclaimed holy men have been exploiting the poor, needy and marginalized peoples’ grievances by hiding their own wrongdoings behind the curtains of religious.

The 50-year-old controversial leader, which claims to have 60 million followers around the world, has been living a flamboyant life amid various controversies surrounding him for over two decades.

His conviction in the court came after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee received an anonymous letter that claimed Singh raped two female followers inside the premises of his organization Dera Sacha Sauda in Sarisa in 1999. The letter further claimed nearly 40 girls are under constant threat from Dera members.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), following the directives of High Court, filed a case of sexual exploitation against Singh in September 2002. CBI claims it has evidence to prove the rapes. Singh has denied all charges. Singh has also been accused of two murders. In July 2002, the year when the anonymous letters appeared, Ranjit Singh – the manager of Dera Sacha Sauda, was allegedly shot dead on Singh's instructions. Later that year, in October, the editor of Poora Sach, Ram Chander Chhatrapati, was also shot because of covering the rape cases in his newspaper. The case is still under trial.

The man has also reportedly directed castration of hundreds of his devotees to get them ‘close to God’.

All this happened in Punjab province at a distance less than 300 miles from the capital New Delhi that is battling for its own survival amid alarming numbers of rape cases besides other urban and sociopolitical issues. The Indian government needs to see this growing unrest in a more holistic way by studying reasons behind people’s growing frustrations and reliance on the so-called holy men for comfort. India should address the under lining grievances of its people before they start blindly following the ‘holy men’ who can make them further ignite the social unrest, or even pick arms against the state.