Dera chief's driver testifies against him in two murder cases as final arguments begin

The final arguments in two murder cases against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh begun in a special CBI court at Panchkula on Saturday.

A former driver of the disgraced cult's leader, Khatta Singh, filed an application to record a fresh statement against him.

He said he was threatened and was scared that his son and he would be killed.

"I was scared that they would kill me and my son, we were threatened," Khatta Singh was quoted as saying by ANI.

The court has posted the next date of hearing on his application for September 22.

The CBI court is hearing the cases of killings of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and former Dera manager Ranjit Singh.

Ram Chander Chhatrapati was shot dead in October 2002 after a newspaper owned by him, 'Poora Sach', published an anonymous letter narrating how women were being sexually exploited by the sect head at the Dera headquarters.

Ranjit was allegedly shot dead in July 2002.

According to the prosecution, he was murdered for his suspected role in circulating the anonymous letter which made



the allegations of sexual exploitation.

Khatta, a witness in the murder cases, had retracted his statement in 2012. He had turned hostile as he was under pressure from Ram Rahim and his "goons", the driver's counsel Navkiran Singh alleged.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim SIngh has been lodged in Sunaria Jail near Rohtak participated in the hearing through a video call. He has been named as the main conspirator in the cases.

Heavy security deployment has been in place outside the court of special CBI judge Jagdeep Singh.

We have five companies of paramilitary forces, rest are our district forces: Panchkula DCP Manbir Singh #Haryana pic.twitter.com/b0bt6ALevZ

— ANI (@ANI) September 16, 2017

We have five companies of paramilitary forces, rest are our district forces: Panchkula DCP Manbir Singh #Haryana pic.twitter.com/b0bt6ALevZ

On August 25, the Dera Sacha Sauda chief was convicted by a special CBI court of raping two women followers and sentenced him to 20 years in jail.

Dera followers went on a rampage after the verdict in which 38 people died and 264 injured.