Travesty of justice

The effortless ease with which Gurmeet Ram Rahim is frequently released from prison should raise questions. The leader of the Dera Sacha Sauda secured his third release in the past nine months, five days ahead of the polling in Haryana. Incidentally most of his fifteen releases have coincided with elections in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is widely known that he has pockets of influence in as many as 30 Assembly constituencies in the five states whose borders converge around Delhi. The media has discovered rather lately that the rape and murder convict has been out on parole for 250 days ever since he was sentenced for 20 years for rape of two disciples in his ashram and murder of a journalist who exposed the murders in a newspaper he was publishing. Journalist Chhatrapati Ramchander was shot dead after he exposed the rapes in the dera after he received an anonymous letter written to his newspaper Poora Sach. It took his son Anshul 17 years to pursue the case of his father’s murder to the logical conclusion. It is only after several such releases that the media has discovered that the leader of the Dra Sacha Sauda has spent 250 days out of the prison cell during the four years he has been in jail. Though the parole reportedly bars him from visiting Haryana, making public speeches or indulging in any political activity, it does not necessitate any extraordinary wisdom to glean that political clout is wielded and election messaging can be done in multiple ways through social media these days. Not merely this. It also raises the ethnical question as to how the office of the Chief Electoral Officer glosses over these prospects despite wide apprehension of his cultist clout coming handy in mobilising support for parties or candidates, notwithstanding bar on them. Even more disturbing is how do politicos and political parties seek support of a person convicted for heinous crimes such as rape.