Chandigarh, Mar 28 (PTI) Self-styled Christian preacher Pastor Bajinder Singh was on Friday convicted in a 2018 rape case by a court in Punjab's Mohali district.
The court of additional district and sessions judge Vikrant Kumar will pronounce the quantum of sentence on April 1.
Bajinder Singh has been convicted under Sections 376 (rape), 323 (punishment for voluntary causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
After he was held guilty, the 42-year-old pastor was taken to Patiala jail.
Five others accused in the case -- Akhbar Bhatti, Rajesh Chaudhary, Jatinder Kumar, Sitar Ali and Sandeep Pehlwan -- was acquitted.
The case was registered based on a complaint filed by a woman at Zirakpur police station in 2018.
The complainant had alleged that Bajinder Singh lured her by promising to take her abroad. He raped her at his residence in Sector 63 in Mohali and made a video of it.
She had alleged that the accused had threatened to post the video on social media if she did not agree to his demands.
The conviction comes even as the pastor is facing probe in another sexual harassment case filed on February 28.
The Kapurthala Police has formed a three-member special investigation team to probe harassment charges levelled against him by a 22-year-old woman.
Singh has rejected the allegations against him as baseless.
On March 25, Mohali Police had booked the pastor for assault and other charges, days after a video of him purportedly arguing and slapping a woman went viral on social media.
In the video, which appeared to be CCTV footage of a room, said to be dated February 14, Singh was seen arguing and throwing a bunch of papers at the woman, before slapping her.
The self-styled preacher runs The Church of Glory and Wisdom at Tajpur in Jalandhar, and another church at Majri in Mohali.
Bajinder Singh became a Christian preacher in 2012. His supporters claim that his church has many branches in India and abroad.
The church holds congregations, where a large number of people come in anticipation of curing their ailments. These congregations are broadcast live on the YouTube channel 'Prophet Bajinder Singh', which has 3.74 million subscribers.