Gurmeet Ram Rahim convicted of rape: Twitter withholds Dera Sacha Sauda chief's account in India

New Delhi: Twitter has frozen the official account of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the Dera Sacha Sauda chief who has been convicted in two rape cases and sentenced to 20 years in jail. A search on the micro-blogging site for Ram Rahim’s accounts returned a message “@Gurmeetramrahim’s account has been withheld in: India”.

Twitter explains, “In our continuing effort to make our services available to users everywhere, if we receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorised entity, it may be necessary to reactively withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time.” According to Twitter, if Twitterati see a “grayed-out user in timeline or elsewhere in Twitter”, access to that particular account has been withheld in a particular country, in this case in India. Fifteen years after he raped two of his female disciples, Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was on Monday sentenced to 20 years in jail for rape and criminal intimidation and fined Rs 30 lakh. The rapist sect chief was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in each of the two instances of rape. The sentences will run consecutively.