"We chased Khatta Singh for two months for the sting": author Anurag Tripathi

Anurag Tripathi during the interview with the writer

Anurag Tripathi is an investigative journalist with sixteen years of experience and has worked as editor, reportage at Newslaundry, and senior associate editor, Tehelka. He started his career with the Hindustan Times, Lucknow, and has worked with the Times of India, Aaj Tak, India TV and NewsX. In an interview to Bhavey on the sidelines of Times Litfest 2018, he talked about his decade long investigation on Ram Rahim; political nexus between BJP and India TV; Dera’s BJP boycott in Rajasthan elections; his two month long chase for Khatta Singh who later became the protected witness of CBI and ultimately led to the conviction of Gurmeet Ram Rahim in August 2017. His book “Dera Sacha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim: A Decade-long investigation” published by Penguin was launched in April 2018. Excerpts of the interview:

Bhavey (B): Tell us about how you initially uncovered the Jhootha Souda series while working for Tehelka.

Anurag (A): The investigative department of Tehelka got a lead that there is a Baba named Gurmeet Ram Rahim (GR) who murdered a journalist and he has many documents in support. He wanted to meet us. Initially he was hesitating to trust as he went to many big organizations with the story, but they ignored. At that time Tehelka was known for its investigation stuff. We approached him after checking out the documents and anonymous letter written by the rape victims to then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. We couldn’t believe what he told us, but we decided that this story is worth chasing. I along with my colleague Atmad, went to Sirsa. We started meeting locals and discovered the terror among people who were not ready to speak against GR. Then we met the son of slain journalist Chatarpati’s son, Anshul who narrated the story, how his father was murdered and was fighting case for his father. After 2-3 months doing this investigation we got in touch with some CBI officials who gave some leads that there are many things to investigate but due to political pressure, they were unable to do it. “You people can do it, and do something that there will be pressure on us why we didn’t did this” they told us. Somehow I managed to meet one of the rape survivors at her home, initially they refuse to talk but after visiting them the fourth time, her father agreed to talk to us. Allegedly, her brother Ranjit Singh was murdered too and they told us the whole story which was merely an allegation. But we were looking for a person who was witness to all these misdeeds done by GR. Then we met a person who recently felt out of GR: Khatta Singh (KS) and was moving around to save his life. So, we traced him in two months and did a sting operation in Chandigarh. When we did a cover story, it lead to pressure on CBI, which had to record the statements of victims. Rest is an open history and for next ten years things were dragged.  

   

Anurag during a session on "fake godman" at Times Litfest 2018

B: You mentioned somewhere about the dera followers being well armed during the Panchkula Violence, so do you think there is some arms training like thing inside Sirsa dera?

A: There use to be a big camp for arm training inside Dera. In 2009, the army intelligence wrote a letter to local administration that some ex-armymen are providing them training to use pistol. Also, some training on how to arrange a blood donation camp during crisis. But the activities stopped as the local administration leaked the letter.    

B: During your investigation, were you able to excess the IOs in CBI or they tried to contact to?

A: Yes, some honest officials from the CBI were helping us. They got lead from somewhere and they contacted us and I did too. One thing I would like to mention about Mulinja Narayan, who was heading the investigation. He was facing a lot of political pressure and especially from three congress MPs. In fact when Manmohan Singh was Prime Minister, these three MPs met the PM to request for the elimination of Narayan. PM even called the CBI chief and told him that he is an honest officer and should go for the investigation.   

Anurag Tripathi and his book

B: What’s your opinion on the political nexus between BJP and India TV, point being the stings that Tehelka aired on India TV is no more available on their archives?

A: When we broke the story in 2007, our names appeared on were fewer platforms. Our head of investigation, Harinder Baweja did a show with the head of India TV, Rajat Sharma (RS) on this because the reach of Tehelka was limited, being an English magazine. Whereas, India TV was on top in TRP charts and RS had a big name. On the second day after the show was aired, eventually posters showed up in Punjab: “Rajat Sharma Zindabad.” India TV aired this for three days that “we did this sting and GR did this.” But when he (RS) got powerful and rich and Dera starting giving Advertisement to India TV, all of sudden GR started coming on his programs. Somehow in 2014 out of frustration, I checked if the old stings are still available or not. They were not available either on the website or YouTube. Then in 2017, I wrote an article for Newslaundry in which I clearly mentioned that I was the person who did the sting and its missing on India TV. One day, my friend in cyber world, found a small clip of the sting of India TV and then in 2017, this same RS started claiming that they were the first to unearth the whole investigation and GR is behind bars because of him. Out of business interest, he forgot that same GR whom he declared criminal in 2007 and again in 2017, in between he grew powerful and BJP was fully backing him and everyone knows the political inclination of India TV. Even I wrote to RS about the same but he hasn’t responded yet.

B: There are still some talks in my town about Baba being a good man, given the fact that he has given a new life to drug addicts and prostitutes in his area including Punjab. What do you think?

A: Look, one is your real work and other is what you make a face for. There is no doubt that his predecessor Shah Satnam did a lot of social work and GR took benefit of his works. Basically, GR kept the good people of Shah Satnam in forefront and made his separate team. So, the followers of Shah Satnam remained. Also, if you visit Sirsa and talk about this Dera cult, people will appreciate but if you’ll ask about GR, you’ll rarely find any good response. I’ll admit that Shah Satnam brought the marginalized class of Sikh religion into forefront given the fact that in India cast system is prevalent in every religion and made this section self-sufficient by giving them a piece of land for agriculture, they started building small gurudwaras in their villages and started earning two time food.          

Book "Dera Sacha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim: A
decade-long investigation" launched in the presence of
Hartosh Singh Bal, Abhinandan Sekhri and others in May 2017.

B: Do you think is there still any chance that Baba, sitting in jail, could announce Dera’s support to any party in upcoming general or assembly elections?

A: I’m not sure that if he’ll support any party sitting inside or not but one thing I know for sure that inside the cult there is anger that they’ll not support the BJP in Rajasthan and are saying that even the presence of BJP couldn’t keep Baba out of jail.    

B: So, Khatta Singh (KS) was your biggest source in all this investigation, who basically was looking for someone whom he could confess about Baba’s saga. What acc. to you are some tactics to win a source?

A: Basically, KS was one who anchored my story and my sources were the survivors. My other sources were the victims of the incarnation like Hansraj; son of Chhatarpati, Anshul and some locals. You’ve to understand that merely my written piece is not sufficient and why should I write if I don’t have supporting evidence. So, KS became important for me because he was the person who was present when the command of the killings and all was given and eventually he became the protected witness for CBI. To build such sources you’ve to be very much patient and need to win the confidence of that person. We chased KS for around two months in Punjab-Haryana and finally met him in Chandigarh.

      

B: Did you ever drop a story because of any pressure?

A: No, I never do that. I prefer to quit job. Kya karna hai aisi nokri ka jisme khabar girani pade?  Today’s journalists do these things. I use to roam unemployed. Sometimes we’ve do a job for two months and remain idle six months. If I was here to do this, I would have done this easily.     

(Photos by Nimmi Bhandar and Facebook wall of Anurag)