The Haryana administration is investigating if illegal abortions were conducted at the Dera Sacha Sauda’s health facility in Sirsa, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday. This comes a day after officials ended a three-day search at the organisation’s headquarters.
“The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act was not followed properly in the hospital, and irregularities have been detected,” Deputy Commissioner Prabhjot Singh told the daily. A doctor, who was part of the search team, said irregularities were found in the Shah Satnam Ji Super Speciality Hospital’s records for 2015.
“It cannot be ruled out that Dera Sacha Sauda carried medical termination of pregnancies in about six cases,” said. Haryana Public Relations Department Deputy Director (information) Satish Mehra. The developments gain significance as Dera’s chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of raping at least two of his followers.
The case
The Dera campus, spread over 600 acres, houses a stadium, a hospital, educational institutes, a luxury resort, bungalows and markets. The section where Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had lived in is a 100-acre area, which only the close associates of the Dera were allowed to enter.
The woman who complained against Ram Rahim had said she had been called into the cave before being assaulted.
On August 28, a Central Bureau of Investigation court sentenced Ram Rahim Singh to 20 years in prison for raping two of his followers in 2002. In the violence that erupted after the verdict, 38 people died and over 250 were injured.
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