Punjab and Haryana HC rejects bail plea of Honeypreet Insan, DSS chief’s alleged daughter

Source: timesnownews.com

Chandigarh: A bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today rejected the bail plea of Honeypreet Singh Insan, an aide of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan. Aged 37, Honeypreet was accused of inciting violence in Haryana’s Panchkula in 2017 when the DSS chief was convicted by a special CBI court of raping two of his female disciples and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

This is not the first time a court has rejected the bail plea of Honeypreet whose real name is Priyanka Taneja. The Panchkula Sessions Court had rejected her application for bail in June of 2018, which is when her lawyers decided to move the high court. Arrested in October of 2018, Honeypreet has been housed at the Ambala Central Jail in Haryana.

A special investigative team (SIT) formed to investigate the violence which unfolded in the town of Panchkula had revealed that Honeypreet along with other senior members of the religious sect was planning to burn the entire city in the event of the court not granting bail to the Dera chief. Police officers familiar with the investigation had added that Honeypreet, who claimed to be Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan’s adopted daughter, even-handed out money to several of his followers while directing them to incite violence following the verdict of the special CBI court.

It was not long after her arrest that Honeypreet told media outlets that she had no money to hire a legal defence to argue her case in court since her bank accounts had been frozen by investigators. She even wrote a letter to the Ambala Central jail administration, asking them to aid her with a legal defence.

Honeypreet’s alleged adoptive father, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan is serving a life imprisonment sentence at the Sunaria Jail in Rohtak for the murder of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in 2002. The Dera chief who boasts of millions of followers was convicted of murder earlier this year, after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for the rape of two of his female disciples.

Interestingly, a court in Madhya Pradesh sentenced a prisoner of the Sagar Central Jail to another year in prison in July after he attacked a fellow inmate with a tin dustbin. Reports later revealed that the two got into an argument after the victim reportedly spoke ill about Honeypreet Insan. Mukesh Raikwar, aged 26, was sentenced to another year in prison by First Class Judicial Magistrate Karnal Singh Shyam under section 324 of the Indian Penal Code.