Remembering the journalist, who exposed Ram Rahim

It is also important today to remember the the journalist , Ram Chander Chhatrapati who first exposed Ram Rahim in 2002 and in two months time had to pay for it with his life.

A Hindi journalist who ran the paper Poorra Sach first published the letter of the anonymous woman –victim who accused the Dera chief of rape. The three-page letter, written by the woman in Hindi, was addressed to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as well as to the heads of several institutions, including the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court. It revealed Singh as a sex offender, who exploited his women followers (or sadhvis), and urged the authorities to take action against him.

Chhatrapati was shot at point-blank range outside his house. He spent almost a month battling for his life in a hospital but eventually succumbed to the injuries. Although he had named the Dera chief Singh as one of the accused in the FIR, the police refused to mention his name in it. So it fell upon his son Anshul, then 21, to take up a prolonged battle against the authorities in his quest for justice that is yet to end.

Anshul Chhatrapati, the son of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati told the media that he is satisfied with the verdict. “We have been saying since long that Ram Rahim Singh is an enemy of our society,” he said.