Now a rape convict, Ram Rahim also stands charged for two murders. One murder case is of Ranjit Singh, the brother of one of the rape survivors, and the other is of journalist Ram Chander Chattrapati, who exposed Ram Rahim’s illegal activities. But there is a third case, of the murder of Fakir Chand, the manager of Dera Sacha Sauda, who went missing in 1992.

A petition was filed in 2013 in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana to investigate the matter, which is still pending. Fakir Chand was allegedly “eliminated for fear of disclosure of misdeeds of Ram Rahim”.