The CBI officer who investigated the rape cases against Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has said that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had gone through the statements of the two victims and backed the probe against the controversial Dera chief.
The chief investigating officer in the case, M Narayanan, a retired DIG of the CBI, revealed to a news channel that Manmohan Singh had ignored political pressure and even summoned the then CBI chief Vijay Shanker to his office to discuss the case.
"The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood by the CBI and ordered us to go by the law. He went through the statement made by two Sadhvis before a judge and did not succumb to the pressures from Punjab and Haryana MPs,” said Narayanan, a native of Kasaragod in Kerala, who was in Mysore on the day Ram Rahim was sentenced by the CBI special court to 20 years in jail.
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He also praised his boss Vijay Shanker for ignoring pressure from the powerful Punjab and Haryana MPs. “He (Vijay Shanker) ordered us to go ahead and complete the investigation in just 57 days as ordered by the High Court".
The CBI had started the probe into the following an anonymous letter in 2002. The rapes were reported between 1999 and 2002 and the victims came forward only after the CBI started probe in December 2012.
The whole episode of Ram Rahim’s conviction and sentencing witnessed violence by his followers that left at least 38 people dead and more than 200 injured.
