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Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 8
As judgement day in the Ram Chander Chhatrapati murder case draws closer, family members of the slain journalist are hopeful that justice will come their way after a struggle for over 17 years.
The late journalist’s elder son Anshul Chhatrapati said on Tuesday that the way investigation into the case had gone ever since the CBI took over the case in December 2003 and the subsequent trial in the special CBI court, he was hopeful that his father’s murders would meet their fate.
Anshul’s father, who published the evening daily Poora Sach from Sirsa, was shot at outside his residence in Sirsa on October 24, 2001, by two dera followers because he had been writing about dera activities, including publishing of an anonymous letter relating to rape of sadhvis written to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The journalist died on November 21, 2002. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, along with dera manager Krishan Lal and two shooters Kuldeep and Nirmal, had been facing murder charges.
Talking about his struggle, Anshul said it was difficult for a commoner like him to fight for justice against a person who had the might of the state kneeling at his feet. “All these years, till Ram Rahim was jailed in rape cases on August 25, 2017, my family and Ilived in fear because the state which was expected to provide us pleasing Ram Rahim. Though I never lost faith in the judicial system, the verdict in rape cases reassured us that all was not lost,” he said.
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