Chandigarh: Hearing of murder cases against Ram Rahim commenced at CBI Special Court in Panchkula on Saturday.
55-year-old Ram Rahim Singh will appear before a CBI special court through video conferencing from the Rohtak jail, where he is lodged after being sentenced to 20 years in prison in two rape cases.
The CBI court is hearing the cases of murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and former Dera manager Ranjit Singh. Murder is punishable with life imprisonment or death sentence.
Meanwhile, contingents of paramilitary troops and the Haryana Police have been deployed in Panchkula as security arrangements to avoid any untoward incident after the hearing.
"We have made adequate security arrangements ahead of the hearing in the cases," Haryana Director General of Police B S Sandhu said.
Ram Rahim was sentenced to 20 years in jail on August 28 in the two rape cases by the special CBI Court.
Several parts of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan had witnessed large-scale violence following his conviction in the two rape cases on August 25.
While 41 people were killed in Haryana in the violence, no deaths were reported from Punjab and Rajasthan.
Sirsa-based journalist Chhatrapati was shot at in October, 2002 after the evening newspaper 'Poora Sach', owned by him, published an anonymous letter narrating how women were allegedly being sexually exploited by the sect head at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa. He died later.
The second case relates to the murder of former Dera manager Ranjit Singh who was allegedly shot dead in 2002. He was murdered for his suspected role in the circulation of the anonymous letter, which had made the sexual exploitation allegations, according to the prosecution.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had, in November 2003, ordered a CBI probe into the murder of Chhatrapati and Ranjit Singh after the families of both the victims approached the court.
The CBI had filed the chargesheet in the murder cases on July 30, 2007.
With inputs from PTI.
