Dera head spent 406 days outside prison walls
Chandigarh, May 26, 2026 (Bharat Khabarnama Bureau) : Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the convicted chief of the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda sect, was granted a 30-day parole on Monday, marking his 16th temporary release from Rohtak’s Sunaria prison since 2020.
With this latest grant on the eve of municipal elections in Punjab, the dera head, registered in prison records as convict 8647/C, has now exhausted his full 10-week parole entitlement for the 2026 calendar year under the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Act, 2022. He had already been released for 40 days in January this year.
Ram Rahim has been in prison since August 25, 2017, the day a special CBI court convicted him of raping two women disciples and sentenced him to 20 years in jail. On January 17, 2019, he received a life sentence for the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati. In October 2021, a CBI court handed him another life term for conspiring in the murder of Dera manager Ranjit Singh. However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court subsequently acquitted him in both cases, in the Ranjit Singh matter in 2024 and in the Chhatrapati case earlier this year.
Over the course of his sentence so far, spanning approximately eight years and eight months or 3,193 days in total, Ram Rahim has spent 406 days outside prison walls. Since parole periods do not count towards the total sentence served, those days have not reduced his time behind bars. Furlough, by contrast, does count towards the sentence, meaning any period spent on furlough need not be served again.
Under the 2022 Act, a prisoner is entitled to up to 10 weeks of parole in a calendar year, availed in no more than two parts, along with a separate three-week furlough that must be taken in one continuous stretch. Ram Rahim still retains the option to apply for his three-week furlough before the end of this year. Additionally, once he completes three-fourths of his 20-year rape conviction sentence, the law entitles him to an extended furlough of four weeks, though that too cannot be availed in parts.
