Delhi HC to hear Honeypreet’s bail plea: All about jailed Dera chief’s aide

The Delhi high court will on Tuesday hear an anticipatory bail plea filed by Honeypreet Insan, a close aide of jailed Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

The Haryana Police conducted raids in Delhi on Tuesday as they searched for Honeypreet, whose real name is Priyanka Taneja.

Honeypreet, in her mid-30s, is on the run since August 25, hours after Ram Rahim was convicted of raping two women followers. She has been the closest aide of Ram Rahim since 2009. The police is on her trail for nearly a month and raids have been conducted in Nepal, Rajasthan, Bihar and Haryana.

Honeypreet, who used to claim that she was Ram Rahim’s “adopted daughter”, starred in five films he directed, produced and acted in, in three years.

“Papa’s angel, philanthropist, director, editor and actress… Passionate to transform my Rockstar Papa’s directions into actions” -- this is how Honeypreet describes herself on Facebook.

She caught media attention when she accompanied Singh to the CBI court. Insiders say she became his shadow in the past few years. The Dera’s website on her introduces her as a prodigy of sorts who learnt editing, direction and acting without any training. “When her dad watched her putting so much of hard work and learning directing skills so fast, he thought of giving her a chance to debut as a director in MSG The Warrior Lion Heart,” says the website.

Honeypreet is from Fatehabad near Hisar.

She was given her present name after the Dera chief got her married to Vishwas Gupta, a Dera follower from Sirsa, in 1999. Dera insiders claim that when Honeypreet complained to Singh that her in-laws were demanding dowry, he adopted her as his daughter in 2009 and made Vishwas his son-in-law, which gave a boost to his business. But soon Gupta fell out with his father-in-law, and in 2011 approached the Punjab and Haryana HC to seek the custody of his wife from the Dera chief.

In 2015, Honeypreet started directing and acting in Singh’s movies. Sources say at a meeting of volunteers, he announced that she could be a candidate for his seat.

Last week, Honeypreet’s former husband, Vishwas Gupta accused her and Ram Rahim of having illicit relations and said their “father-daughter relationship” was a sham to fool followers.

Ram Rahim has been sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of over Rs 30 lakh.

His conviction led to violence in Panchkula and Sirsa in Haryana, leaving 38 people dead and 264 injured. Isolated incidents of violence were also reported from Delhi and several other places in Punjab.

With inputs from agencies