Investigative journalist, Anurag Tripathi, in his book Dera Sacha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim: A Decade of Investigation, tells the story of the rise and fall of the self-proclaimed Godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan.
Through his book, Tripathi draws the attention of his readers to all aspects of the life of the self-proclaimed Godman and tells of incidents of bloody murders, sexual exploitation, illegal arms trade, the opium trade and the forced castration of hundreds of adherents, as well as the building of a private militia for his cult, Dera Sacha Sauda.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim is currently in prison and is serving a 20-year sentence for raping two Sadhvis. He has two homicide cases pending, which are currently being heard by a special CBI court.
Another pending case against the Dera chief is that of mass castration. The self-proclaimed Godman reportedly castrated hundreds of sadhus without their consent, with the help of two doctors.
In the following passages, Tripathi reports the plight of one such sadhu, Hansraj, who claims that he was cheated and castrated by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan (please note that several paragraphs/parts have been removed from the passage to summarize it ):
I had first met Hansraj in 2012. Over the next five years, his appearance had changed significantly. He seemed to have gained a lot of weight and had little facial hair. “It’s all the effect of castration. The body gets out of balance. The hormones are completely out of balance, which has had an impact on me,’ he said, perhaps sensing my gaze on him.
In January 1996, Hansraj moved to Dera’s headquarters in Sirsa. In the same year, in the presence of his family and a few other sadhus of the Dera, Gurmeet Ram Rahim formally ordained him as a sadhu after giving him two sweets. He was assigned to be part of the Shahi Bhajan Mandali. With his natural flair for music, Hansraj quickly became a popular bhajan singer in the Dera. He started strumming a guitar and with regular practice he got good at it. Soon Hansraj became the head of sound system management at the Dera.
“In 1999, some other sadhus and I found out about a horse castration experiment in the Dera. The animal died after three months.’ Hansraj said this was the first time he heard about castration. He heard that the chief had decided to conduct the same experiment on humans. Initially, a member of senior management staff, known to be close to Gurmeet, was forced to undergo the surgery. In late 1999, the chief convened a gathering of 500 sadhus at Dera’s headquarters. These sadhus were part of the Saint Brahmachari Sevadar group of Dera Sacha Sauda.
During that meeting, the sadhus were told that they would have to undergo minor surgery that would bring them “directly in contact with God.” Gurmeet Ram Rahim explained that this operation would take away all their worldly worries and take them one step closer to heaven. The sadhus were then introduced to two doctors: Dr. Pankaj Garg and Dr. MP Singh. Gurmeet said these two doctors had been trained in the “special surgery” and added it would be painless.
After the meeting, Gurmeet met the sadhus one-on-one. “Those who agreed to the operation at the time weren’t quite sure what it was about. They were treated royally that day,” recalls Hansraj. Those who refused to comply were humiliated and abused by Gurmeet. Some were even sent to the torture chamber and beaten up for days.
To begin with, two sadhus, Ratan and Dharam Singh, who was also the personal cook of the Dera chief, underwent the operation. Impromptu appointments were made in the gufa, and the doctors named by the head of Dera at the meeting performed the operation. Mohan Singh Diwana, Mittu Singh and Gurjant Singh, three close associates of Gurmeet, were the next to have the operation performed.
These sadhus were strictly told not to reveal to other sadhus that they had been castrated. Gurmeet said that, among other things, they had to communicate that after the surgery they could see God and feel close to Him. They had to tell the other sadhus that the operation had taken their minds to a higher realm of spirituality and that they could now communicate directly with the Supreme Power because of their improved ability to concentrate. At the direction of the chief, the castrated sadhus held regular meetings with eighteen to twenty young sadhus in an attempt to brainwash them into believing that the surgery would miraculously change their lives.
In October 2000, Hansraj traveled with Gurmeet Ram Rahim to his hometown in Gurusar Modia in Rajasthan. “I was a bhajan singer, so Gurmeet always took me to his hometown when he visited, to perform bhajans.” On the way, Gurmeet said to him, ‘Tum par rehmat ho gayi hai’ (you are blessed), and that Hansraj would soon have a vision from God. “I didn’t know this trip would ruin my whole life.” Hansraj was then seventeen years old and completely oblivious to the trap he was falling into.
Dera Sacha Sauda runs a hospital in Gurusar Modia, the village of Gurmeet Singh in Sri Ganganagar district. According to Hansraj, most of the first castrations were done in this hospital. He said that Dera’s head had asked him to go to the hospital and meet Dr. Garg and Dr. Singh and say to them, ‘Mujh par rehmat ho gayi.’ (I am blessed.)
When he went to the hospital that evening and told the doctors exactly what Dera’s head had asked him to do, they smiled and offered him a cold drink. “Even before I could drink half the bottle, my head started spinning and I started hallucinating. I soon fell unconscious only to wake up three days later.’
His ordeal had only just begun.
When he regained consciousness, he found his genitals bandaged. ‘I was in tremendous pain. I screamed and got injections of painkillers,’ he said, recalling the horror. In the evening, when the bandages were changed, he realized that his testicles had been removed. “Out of fear, depression and pain, I peed on the bed itself,” he said, telling of that day with tears in his eyes. He wanted to die. His faith in the Dera and its leader was shattered. He felt betrayed.
“Where should I run, who should I tell what happened to me, how will I live the rest of my life—those were some of the questions that ran through my head.”
He confronted the doctors who operated on him, but was told he was ‘chosen’ – he had been specially ordained by ‘God’ Gurmeet himself, and should have no reason to complain, nor should he tell anyone in the Dera to tell.
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This pattern of selecting young boys and sending them to castration continued for a long time. Hansraj said more than 20 minors from his group alone were sent for the operation. As the number of castration cases increased, it became difficult to keep it a secret. Soon most of the sadhus in the Dera became aware of it. Some tried to flee to avoid it. Those caught trying to escape were beaten up and put in the torture chamber for days.
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According to Hansraj’s own estimate, more than two hundred sadhus had been castrated by the end of 2002. He cited two cases, one in which three brothers were neutered and another in which two brothers were neutered. “Imagine the plight of those parents, all three sons of whom are neutered,” he said.
In 2002, a meeting of the castrated sadhus was called by the Dera chief, in which he told them that they were now ‘eunuchs’ to the outside world. They could not marry or reproduce. They would soon become more like women than men, and if they left the Dera, society would not accept them. They must therefore pledge their full allegiance to him and give him complete control over their life and death. Henceforth, they would have to do whatever assignment they were given without a doubt, even if it involved dying or killing.
(The following excerpt is published with permission from Penguin India. Written by Anurag Tripathi, the paperback Dera Sacha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim: A Decade of Investigation costs Rs 265.00)