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Even as questions are being raised about the failure of the Haryana state administration to protect its citizens from the bloody rampage that followed the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a rape case, has there been an effort to cover up evidence on other possible crimes?

A video (above) shows a sting operation on the DSS cheif that had aired on India TV in 2007. The segment, titled Baba aur Balatkar (The Godman and Rape), was hosted by the channel’s Editor-in-Chief Rajat Sharma. In the course of the operation for Tehelka, the journalists involved in the investigation had tracked down Khatta Singh, who was Ram Rahim’s driver at the time.

Khatta Singh had stood witness before the CBI in December 2006, and given a testimony against the DSS chief. Some of the evidence concerned Ranjeet Singh, the brother of one of the two women who had filed the complaint of rape, who was murdered. The investigation, as revealed in the video, highlighted a key piece of evidence – the letter that Ranjeet Singh’s sister had written to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the crime. The letter kickstarted the High Court-directed investigation that led to the conviction.

But here’s the curious part: the journalists behind the operation, Anurag Tripathi and Etmad A Khan, claimed that the video report had gone missing in 2014. Now, a copy has surfaced and is on YouTube.