18 Teenage Girls Rescued From Baba Ram Rahim Singh’s Headquarters

Sirsa: Police rescued 18 minor girls from Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) sect headquarters, on Tuesday.

The girls aged up to 19 years were rescued after completing all legal formalities and are expected to undergo medical examination. The girls are under the supervision of a Child Protection Officer. Later, they would be sent to child protection institutes being run at different places. The girls were rescued after Baba Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of rape of two of his female disciples in 1999 and sentenced to 20 years in prison by a CBI special court.

In another development, 650 people of the DSS left the sect headquarters on Tuesday. Following this, only 250 to 300 people are now left in the Dera campus.

The Sirsa town has returned to normalcy and curfew has been relaxed after 7 pm on Tuesday. "The curfew has been relaxed to allow people to buy things of daily use," Special Commissioner V. Umashankar said.

The curfew restrictions, however, continued near the sect headquarters, about eight kilometer from the town. Security forces, including the Army, paramilitary and Haryana police, continued to be stationed around the 700-acre sprawling Dera headquarters campus.