12 January 2019: Welcoming the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for the murder of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chattarpati, the Indian Journalists Union, the largest and most representative organisation of journalists in the country, said his family and the journalist fraternity have finally got justice.

Chattarpati, who ran a newspaper Pooch Sach, was shot dead in his house on 24 October, 2002 following a news report published by him in May 2002 about an anonymous complaint by a Sadhvi about sexual exploitation of Sadhvis in Dera Sacha Sauda. The case was registered in 2003 and handed over to the CBI in 2006. After 12-long years, the CBI court finally gave its verdict on Friday convicting Ram Rahim and three of his associates for Chattarpati’s murder.

The IJU’s State Union the Punjab & Chandigarh Journalists Union welcomed the conviction and said “it has been a very long battle in which Chattarpati’s son Anshul and a few friends stood together,” and their fight has eventually not gone in vain.

IJU President D Amar and Secretary General Sabina Inderjit said that it was Chattarpati who first blew the lid on Ram Rahim’s sexual exploits of the inmates at his Dera, for which he is now undergoing a 20-year sentence on charges of raping two Sadhvis. The IJU has stood by Chattarpati’s family and had participated in the initial protests at Sirsa for Rahim’s arrest and fileing of case against him. The IJU backs Anshul’s appeal to the CBI court to sentence Ram Rahim’s assasins “with maximum punishment," as it would send a strong message to all those who seek to silence journalists from carrying out their duties.