Honeypreet Insan, the adopted daughter of rape convict Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, was arrested on Tuesday from a highway in Punjab more than a month after she went into hiding.
Her arrest came hours after she appeared on multiple television channels to deny police charges of instigating the Dera chief chief’s followers after he was sentenced to 20 years in jail. At least 41 people were killed violence by his followers and subsequent police action.
Aditya Insaan, the Dera spokesperson, is absconding. Both of them have been charged with sedition, conspiracy to free Gurmeet and inciting violence after his sentencing.
Another aide of Gurmeet, Surender Dhiman, was arrested earlier.
Police said Honeypreet, whose real name is Priyanka Taneja, was arrested along with another woman when they were travelling along the Zirakpur-Patiala highway in an SUV. Police did not identify the other woman.
She will be produced in a local court on Wednesday, Panchkula police commissioner AS Chawla told Hindustan Times, adding that she was being interrogated by a senior woman police officer.
Earlier there were reports of her fleeing to Nepal.
At least 12 police teams were deployed in and around Chandigarh since Monday after they were tipped off about her presence in the area, Chawla added.
“They found Honeypreet along with another woman in an Innova car near the Nabha Sahib Gurdwara on the Zirakpur-Patiala highway, nearly 20 km from here…the woman accompanying her was driving the vehicle,” he said.
He refused to comment when asked if Honeypreet was arrested on her to surrender before a local court.
Honeypreet, accused by her former husband of having a sexual relationship with her mentor Gurmeet, was last seen when she accompanied the Dera chief on a chopper to a Rohtak jail.
Honeypreet, said to be in her thirties, parted ways with her Panchkula-based husband before settling at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa in 2009.
Over the years, she became the most powerful person in the controversial organisation after Gurmeet Singh, who has lakhs of followers.
Described in the Dera website as a prodigy, Honeypreet has a massive fan following in Facebook and Twitter.
She also acted opposite the flamboyant 50-year-old rape convict in several films and directed one of his films, MSG The Warrior Lion Heart.
In her latest interviews, Honeypreet denies her former husband allegations and claimed that Gurmeet was falsely accused of rape.
Chawla said police those who sheltered Honeypreet during her hiding also face arrest. “Some names are already under investigation. All of them are to be dealt seriously,” he said.
Hindustan times
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