After over a decade of their rapes, the two ‘sadhvis’ eventually got their statements recorded before CBI judges, disclosing the terrifying story of the self-proclaimed godman Ram Rahim, which led to his conviction on August 25, 2017.
As per reports, the rape survivors narrated sequences of events, describing the tales as to how the godman had been raping them as well as other women inside his “gufa”. This gufa refers to a personalized underground room which was considered to be Baba’s personal space.
TOI has copies of the sadhvis’ statements and according to the leading daily, rape was termed as “Pitaji’s Maafi” at Dera Sacha Sauda.
Here’s what TOI reported,
“Only female disciples were deployed to guard Ram Rahim’s underground living quarters. ‘Maafi’ (Pardon) was the code word used among disciples to describe rapes.”
On 28th Feb, 2009, a rape survivor who belongs to Haryana’s Yamunanagar told A K Verma, the CBI judge, that she began to stay in Dera from July 1999 and the reason was her brother who had allegedly been killed afterward as he sought justice for his sister.
Quoting the sadhvi’s statement, Times Of India reported,
“I did not understand when other female disciples used to ask me if I had been ‘granted maafi by pitaji’ until I was raped by Gurmeet on August 28/29 1999, inside the gufa.”
The other sadhvi belongs to Sirsa and she joined Dera Sacha Sauda in June 1998 due to her parents. She started teaching there and Baba renamed her as Nazam. It was in Sept 1999 that she was guarding the so-called ‘gufa’ and Dera chief called her inside. He not only raped her but also warned her of not revealing it to anybody.
When the godman himself is indulged in such crimes, how and what can he teach the world?