Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a 57-year-old convict in rape and murder cases, walked out of Sunaria jail in Rohtak on Tuesday morning after being granted a 30-day parole -- the 16th time he had been released from prison since his conviction in 2017.
His latest release comes months after he was granted a similar parole in January.
Before that, he was out on a 40-day parole in August 2025, a 21-day furlough in April 2025 and a 30-day parole in January 2025 ahead of the February 5 Delhi assembly polls.
He was also granted a 20-day parole on October 1, 2024, days before the October 5 Haryana assembly polls, a 21-day furlough in August 2024, and a three-week furlough in February 2022, barely two weeks before the Punjab assembly polls.
Sikh organisations, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, have previously criticised the repeated grant of parole and furlough to Ram Rahim.
In March, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had acquitted Ram Rahim Singh in the 2002 murder case of a journalist, seven years after he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case by a special CBI court.
In May 2024, the high court had overturned another special CBI court order and acquitted Ram Rahim and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect's former manager, Ranjit Singh.
The Sirsa-headquartered Dera Sacha Sauda has a number of followers in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states.
In Haryana, the Dera has a sizeable number of followers in many districts, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Hisar.
The Dera chief will stay at his Sirsa-headquartered Dera during the parole period, said Dera spokesperson and advocate Jitender Khurana.
(With inputs from PTI)