Chandigarh, May 26 -- The incarcerated chief of the Sirsa based sect Dera Sacha Sauda head, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was granted a 30-day parole on Monday-the 16th temporary release he has received since 2020. The controversial head, designated as convict 8647/C in prison records, has already spent 406 days out of the confines of Rohtak's Sunaria prison during his 3,193 days (about eight years and eight months) of his sentence so far.

Ram Rahim is serving a 20-year jail term at Sunaria prison after being convicted by a special CBI court in 2017 for raping two women disciples. He was subsequently convicted in two murder cases and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 for the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati and in 2021 for hat...