Dera Sacha Sauda chief verdict: Haryana imposes prohibitory orders

Ahead of a court verdict this week in a rape case against Dera Sacha Sauda chief, the Haryana government has imposed prohibitory orders in the state, Additional Chief Secretary Ram Niwas said on Tuesday.

"Security forces have been pressed into service in border areas and the central government has already been requested to provide 115 companies of paramilitary forces," the official said in a statement.

Anti-social elements or any other person who would try to disturb law and order would be arrested, he said.

Niwas said leave of police personnel has been cancelled and home guards would be called on duty.

"All borders of the state have been sealed and inter-state and inter-district activities of vehicles are being closely monitored," he said.

A Special Central Bureau of Investigation court in Panchkula in Haryana would pronounce its verdict in the rape case against Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on August 25. The case hearing has been going on since 2007.

The sect chief, who has lakhs of followers in Punjab, Haryana, and other states, has been accused by a former female follower of raping her more than once inside the sprawling Dera campus on the outskirts of Sirsa town in Haryana, 260 km from Chandigarh.

--IANS

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