Faridkot court orders Dera Sacha Sauda chief's presence before it on Oct 29

A court in Punjab's Faridkot on Monday ordered the production of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, serving a life term in a Rohtak jail in Haryana, before it on October 29.

The Faridkot court issued the production warrant against Ram Rahim on a plea by the Punjab Police Special Investigation Team, seeking his custodial interrogation in a 2015 sacrilege case, involving the thefts of a copy of Guru Granth Sahib.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is currently lodged in Rohtak's Sunaria jail since his conviction in 2017 for raping two disciples.

The SIT led by Inspector General SPS Parmar investigating the 2015 sacrilege cases, moved the court for the production warrant on Monday, said police sources.

The Dera Sacha Sauda chief had been named as an accused in FIR number 63 which pertains to the theft of a 'bir' (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala gurdwara.

Three more Dera committee members -- Harsh Dhuri, Sandeep Bareta and Pardeep Kler too had been booked in this case but they are absconding.

On the Punjab and Haryana High Court orders, the CBI, in February this year, had handed over the documents and files of the case to the Punjab Police SIT.

The previous SAD-BJP government had handed over the three cases -- the theft of a ''bir'' (copy) of the Guru Granth Sahib from Burj Jawahar Singh Wala gurdwara, putting up of handwritten sacrilegious posters in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala and throwing of torn pages of the holy book at Bargari -- to the CBI for the probe.

The Punjab government had handed over the probe to an SIT of the state police in September 2018 after the state assembly passed a resolution withdrawing the state's consent for the CBI probe on the grounds of lack of progress in the investigation.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was sentenced to 20-year imprisonment for raping two disciples. He is currently lodged in Rohtak's Sunaria jail.

Over two years back, the sect head was also awarded life imprisonment for the murder of a journalist, Ram Chander Chhatrapati.

On October 18 this year, a special CBI court in Panchkula had sentenced Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and four others to life imprisonment in the 19-year-old murder case of the sect manager Ranjit Singh.