Chandigarh, October 3: Haryana Police on Tuesday arrested Honeypreet Insan, the adopted daughter of jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, from near Zirakpur in Punjab.
Panchkula Commissioner of Police Arshinder Singh Chawla confirmed the arrest saying she would be produced before the court on Wednesday and the police would seek her remand. He said she was arrested around 3 pm from Zirakpur-Patiala road.
He said that the police would take action against those who had given shelter to her during the period she was on the run.
She will be questioned over her role in violence that followed Ram Rahim’s guilty verdict on August 25, and over suspicions that she planned a jailbreak for the Dera chief.
Chawla refused to comment on rumours that Honeypreet was arrested by Punjab Police and handed over to Haryana, but said police had already begun questioning her. He also dispelled rumours about her having turned herself in.
“It wasn’t a surrender; it was an arrest,” Chawla said. He also said that the Burqa-clad woman in Delhi advocate’s office was not Honeypreet.
“Women cops were present at the time of the arrest. The other woman who was arrested was driving the vehicle,” Chawla said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Honeypreet, in an interview to a TV news channel, said she would surrender before a Panchkula court . In the interview, she said she would also file an application for bail in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
She said all allegations levelled against her were baseless. She alleged that she was being shown in bad light by the media and others. She alleged that the government had wrongly implicated her in a sedition case.
She said she went with her father, Ram Rahim, to the court like any daughter would do, and that too, with the government’s permission.
“Every daughter remains with her father, I went with him. Have you heard me saying a word where I instigate people. I had gone there (to CBI court in Panchkula) with a hope that my father will return by evening, but when he was held guilty, I went into depression, how could I think about anything else, I was totally devastated,” she said.
When told that her ex-husband Vishwas Gupta and a few Dera followers had accused her of having illicit relations with Ram Rahim, she refuted the allegations.
Priyanka Taneja alias Honeypreet, who tops the list of 43 people ‘wanted’ by the Haryana Police in connection with the incidents of violence that left at least 41 people dead and several injured following Ram Rahim’s conviction, said she was seeking legal opinion on her next step and was likely to move the Punjab and Haryana High Court here.
“Was I present with the arsonists (during the mayhem in Panchkula on August 25), how are they levelling such allegations,” she said while sitting inside a car at an undisclosed location.
Honeypreet has been on the run following the conviction of Ram Rahim in two rape cases. Haryana Police had issued a lookout notice for her. Honeypreet has been accused of hatching the “escape plan” of Ram Rahim after his conviction.
Honeypreet, in her thirties, accompanied Ram Rahim when he was brought to the special CBI court in Panchkula for the pronouncement of the verdict in the 15-year-old rape case on August 25. Honeypreet was last seen with the Dera chief outside the court and in a chopper, arranged to take Ram Rahim to Rohtak jail. She had appealed to the court that she might be granted permission to stay in the lock-up with the Dera chief as a helper, which was turned down.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
