Police with boxes of firecrackers recovered from Dera Sacha Sauda. (Express Photo: Ram Jaipal Singh)
Security agencies on Saturday discovered a small tunnel connecting jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s residence with the hostel of ‘sadhvis’ in the organisation’s headquarters in Sirsa, Haryana. The search operation began on Friday. “We found a narrow path leading from Tera Was (Ram Rahim’s residence in the Dera premises) to Sadhvi Niwas. The motive of such a path is being investigated,” Satish Mehra, deputy director of the Haryana government’s public relations department, said.
Tera Was, popularly known as ‘Gufa’, was the residence of Ram Rahim, who was recently convicted and sentenced for 20 years in jail for raping two ‘sadhvis’ at his residence. Another fibre structure in the shape of a tunnel and filled with earth was recovered from the third floor of the building. A blank box of AK-47 rifle was also recovered, it was informed.
Haryana Police on Saturday lodged an FIR under Explosives Substances Act against the owner of a factory operating from the Dera premises for illegally storing a large cache of firecrackers. On Friday, the police had recovered 84 cartons of firecrackers from Cattle Healthcare, a factory on the campus which was meant to produce cattle feed.
Balwan Singh, a Haryana Police ASI and member of the search team, said no arrest had been made so far in this connection.
Two minors, who were found inside the Dera premises on Friday, were reunited with their family members today. According to state government officials, one of them is a Class VII student from Kaithal town of Haryana, who had come to the Dera with his mother to attend a satsang and had got left behind.
The other boy is from Uttar Pradesh and lives in Sirsa with his family. “He is the son of a worker in a biscuit factory inside the Dera. After the violence of August 25, all the workers left the factory but he stayed,” a local official said.
Anshul Chhatrapati, son of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati who was killed allegedly by Dera men after he published an anonymous letter from one of the women Ram Rahim raped, said that the search operation should be conducted after taking office-bearers of the Dera management into custody.
“The government has already wasted precious time in conducting the search operation,” Anshul said. “We have received reports that hundreds of large and small trucks and vans left the Dera from its rear doors and escaped through link roads — they were not checked by the security forces and may have moved objectionable material to another places.”
“However, the authorities may still find crucial evidence to prove illegal activities being carried out inside the Dera if the police immediately start interrogating those in Dera management,” Anshul claimed.
