Hisar: Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, convicted of rape and murder, claimed during an online satsang (discourse) on Monday that he started T20 cricket in 1990 and made a contraption for catching snakes.
During the discourse, Ram Rahim, who had sparked a social media storm in the past by claiming that he had trained cricketer Virat Kohli, said they built Shah Satnam Ji Stadium in Sirsa’s Jalalana village before starting T20 cricket. “At the time, big players used to say that this is not any kind of cricket, and no one came to play. Today, the whole world has adopted it,” he said.
While Ram Rahim made the sweeping claim, professional T20 cricket was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for inter-country competition to bring in crowds to watch cricket in the UK. The format later spread to Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and arrived in India in 2007.
Elaborating on his apparent snake-catching contraption, Ram Rahim said when the construction of the old dera was going on, many cobras used to come out, which the sewadars used to catch and release in forests. “A trap was made to catch snakes from a distance, so that neither the catcher nor the snake are harmed. At that time, many people suggested I should get it patented, but since I did not want to do business, I did not get it patented,” he said.
Rahim also complained of his stamina falling. The dera chief is serving a jail sentence for rape and a journalist’s murder. Around 40 persons lost their lives in Aug 2017, after violence took place in Panchkula and other parts of Haryana and Punjab after he was convicted in the rape cases.