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Witness No. 31 did Sirsa godman in

PANCHKULA:CBI Special Judge Jagdeep Singh concluded that it was prosecution witness number 31, Khatta Singh, who confirmed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s involvement in the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

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Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, January 17

CBI Special Judge Jagdeep Singh concluded that it was prosecution witness number 31, Khatta Singh, who confirmed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s involvement in the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

Khatta Singh was the driver of Ram Rahim. On Thursday, he kept waiting for the final order the whole day. He said he was happy as the truth has won.

He first recorded his statement before a magistrate on June 22, 2007, that the dera chief had ordered journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati’s murder before him on October 23, 2002. The next day, the journalist was shot, who later succumbed to bullet injuries on November 21, 2002, at a private hospital in New Delhi.

But while deposing before the trial court, Khatta Singh had turned hostile in 2012-2013. He appeared again after the conviction of Ram Rahim in a rape case in 2017 and claimed that due to insecurity, he had resiled. The High Court allowed him to record his statement again against Ram Rahim, which he did in May 2018. Ram Rahim had approached the Supreme Court, but his prayer was dismissed.

The CBI Judge on Thursday commented, “Even though Khatta Singh resiled from his statement given to the investigating agency while deposing in the court in 2012-2013, however, it is by now well settled that evidence of a hostile witness cannot be rejected in toto and the court is not rendered helpless or handicapped to evaluate such evidence.”  

The court added, “Khatta Singh may be having the cover of two gunmen since 2005, but this fact itself cannot be taken to have made the witness fearless or to be a factor to relieve him of all fear psychosis.”

The court said, “Given the clout of the dera and its head, it would be unfair to brush aside casually the threat perception of the witness, especially when there is a credible evidence on record that his family had received a letter of threat much prior to his deposition in the court in 2012-2013. A person who was familiar with the clout of the dera and its head could not be expected to risk his and his family members’ lives.”

The court added that it was a matter of record that informant Aridaman Chhatrapati had stated in his statement that his father was shot at by two assailants and “the cause of ill-will is that his father used to publish news reports” relating to the dera.

The court concluded that it was only Ram Rahim “who had specific motive to get Ram Chander Chhattarpati eliminated”.

Khatta singh’s statement

Khatta Singh told the court that after the distribution of an anonymous letter, alleging sexual exploitation of women followers, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh directed Krishan Lal, dera manager; Darshan Singh, member of the dera management; Inder Sain, dera manager; and Avtar Singh, who was a member of the management, to search for the person who had circulated photocopies of the said anonymous letter. The dera management were suspecting the hand of Ranjit Singh, who was a member of the 10-member administrative committee of the Dera Sacha Sauda, Sirsa.  On October 23, 2002, Ram Rahim and Khatta Singh, who was driving his Land Cruiser, came back from Jalandhar to Sirsa after a satsang. They were present in his gufa where Krishan Lal, Nirmal Singh and Kuldeep Singh came and showed a news item of “Poora Sach” to Ram Rahim. After going through the content of the news item, Ram Rahim directed  Krishan Lal, Nirmal Singh and Kuldeep Singh that before Chhatarpatti publishes any other article or news item in his newspaper about him and activities of the dera again, his voice be silenced forever. According to Khatta Singh, Krishan Lal left the gufa and after some time came back with a walky-talky set and his own revolver. He handed over the same to Nirmal Singh and Kuldeep Singh for murdering Chhatrapati.

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