Flood of birthday cards, rakhis for rapist Ram Rahim at Rohtak post office

Rohtak: The staff at Rohtak post office is working overtime to process a flood of birthday cards and rakhis for rape convict and self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. The Dera Sacha Sauda chief is serving life in two rape cases and the murder of a journalist. 

Till date, the post office has received at least 8,000 cards and rakhis for Ram Rahim as his birthday coincided with Raksha Bandhan this year. 

According to a report, Rohtak post office is receiving at least 2,000 articles per day increasing the workload of the staff. The massive flood of the articles is expected to continue till August 20, said the postmaster.  

The staff at the post office say it is taking time to process each and article sent to Dera Sacha Sauda chief.

"This is a time-taking process because the details of each article need to be uploaded on the database. As a result, the post office staff is working overtime. The post office already lacks in permanent staff and this has added up to the agony," the report quoted the postmaster as saying.

It's the same story for jail administration too as they had to thoroughly check each and every article sent to Ram Rahim. 
 
The Dera chief, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017, is currently lodged at Sunaria jail in Rohtak. He was convicted for raping two of his women followers.

In June this year, the Haryana govt kicked up a storm after it allegedly supported Gurmeet Ram Rahim's parole application ignoring high court objections. In his application, he had reportedly stated farming at his Sirsa fields among the reasons for seeking parole.

Following this, the jail superintendent wrote to the district administration of Sirsa, seeking a report on whether releasing the Dera chief on parole was feasible.

Various human rights had threatened to challenge the parole to rapist Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh if the Haryana government goes ahead with the move. Activists had argued that there are a lot of cases that are still pending against rapist Ram Rahim and if he comes out of jail he may threaten the witnesses. The Sonaria jail authorities in Rohtak had given their approval on granting parole to the Dera Sacha Sauda chief.

In May, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had rejected the parole application filed by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. 

The issue snowballed into a controversy, with critics accusing the Haryana BJP government of appeasing Ram Rahim’s followers ahead of the state Assembly elections slated for later this year.