By Sushil Manav
Chandigarh: Dr. P.R. Nain, senior vice chairperson of the Dera Sacha Sauda, who was questioned by an SIT of the Sirsa police on Tuesday, has admitted that nearly 600 skeletons can be found buried inside the Dera headquarters in Sirsa.
However, Nain maintained that these were bones of the devotees which were buried by their families out of faith that it would give them “moksha” (salvation).
“They have a complete record of the people whose bones were buried in the dera and Nain has handed over a list to the police,” said Kuldeep Beniwal, Deputy Superintendent of Police who heads the SIT that questioned Nain till late in the evening.
A day before search operations began in the dera under supervision of AKS Pawar, the Court Commissioner appointed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Dera mouthpiece ‘Sach Kahoon’ had admitted that human remains were buried inside the premises.
The Dera newspaper, while defending the action of the Dera management in burying the human remains, had claimed that this was done as Dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh encouraged followers to donate the remains to the sect for burial and prevent these from being immersed in rivers, causing pollution.
The newspaper had claimed that the human remains were buried within the campus and trees were planted on these.
Now, the revelations by Nain assume significance in the light of the allegations by Khatta Singh, a former driver of Ram Rahim Singh, that several people had been murdered at the instance of the Dera chief and their bodies buried inside the dera.
Khatta served as Ram Rahim’s driver for nine years and has moved a plea before the Special CBI Court for allowing him to depose as witness in two cases of murder against the Dera head being heard these days.
Khatta had revealed that among the people murdered at the instance of Ram Rahim was one Gora Singh, a teenage boy.
He was shot dead and then his body burned inside the Dera.
India Tribune, as an English weekly newspaper, was launched in 1977 in Chicago by its publisher Prashant Shah with a lofty ideal to serve the Asian Indian community in the USA. Over the years, it has grown with all vigor, and now it is being published in three editions – Chicago, New York and Atlanta. India Tribune, a journal of its kind for the family in the USA, has been a household name for many Indians for over three decades with each issue commanding a readership of over 125,000.
