No illicit ties with Papa: Honeypreet Insan

TNN | Oct 4, 2017, PANCHKULA: Thirty-nine days after Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of rape, resulting in unbridled violence by his followers, his absconding "daughter" Honeypreet Insan was finally arrested by Haryana police on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours after she gave interviews to a couple of TV channels.

Honeypreet had a team of four lawyers with her when she was taken into custody on the Zirakpur-Patiala highway by the special investigation team of Haryana police, senior police officers said. Sources said she was coming to surrender when she was arrested, adding that she had been camping on the outskirts of Panchkula since early Tuesday morning.

"I cannot understand how anyone can point fingers at a pious relationship between a father and his daughter. What proof do they have? Please don't believe such people," she said on TV when asked about allegations of illicit relations with Gurmeet.

Honeypreet rejected reports of skeletons being recovered from the Dera campus in Sirsa and Gurmeet's exploitation of female disciples. "Did anyone find skeletons? No matter what is being said about my papa, he is innocent and time will prove it," she said. "Crores of women and girls have been empowered by Papaji.

You believe two women and not millions of others? Papa is innocent. His conviction has left me depressed. When papa went away (to jail), my world came crashing down," she added.

Honeypreet has been charged with sedition and conspiracy for her alleged role in instigating mobs in Panchkula on August 25 after the Dera chief was convicted of rape. The largescale violence had led to the killing of 36 people in police firing. Honeypreet, alias Priyanka Taneja, had accompanied Gurmeet in the chopper that took him to Sunaria jail in Rohtak. She had gone missing by late evening that day and surfaced only on Tuesday.

She denied her role in the violence, saying: "Have you heard me say a single word to instigate people? I had gone there (to the CBI court) with the hope that my father will return by evening... I was left devastated and shaken that my father had gone behind bars and I have been charged with sedition... How can the world do this to us? We are great patriots and we love India."

"I am not running away from the law and still trying to come to terms that Papa has been sentenced," Honeypreet added.