Cops will confirm who provided Honeypreet shelter

PANCHKULA: Honeypreet Insan was arrested by the Haryana police on Tuesday afternoon, 39 days after Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of rape and sent to jail by a CBI court.

She came with a posse of four lawyers in an Innova car driven by a woman. Senior police officers said that she was taken into custody from the Zirakpur-Patiala highway by the special investigation team (SIT) of Haryana police. Sources added that she had been camping on the outskirts of Panchkula after interacting with TV channel since early Tuesday morning and had come to surrender but was arrested by Haryana cops.

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

Besides allegedly inciting the violence, she will also be questioned about the failed bid to free Gurmeet from police custody by his bodyguards after his conviction in the Panchkula court.

Following Honeypreet's arrest, the four lawyers from Delhi accompanying her reached the police station in Panchkula, reportedly with all documents needed for bail. They were expected to apply for her bail before a local court on the ground that Honeypreet was not named in the initial FIR related to the violence and that her name surfaced only on the basis of people arrested later for inciting the violence. However, Panchkula police did not produce her in court as they are entitled to keep her in police custody till Wednesday.

"She was rounded up around 2pm and arrested an hour later. She is being interrogated and we shall produce her in court for custodial interrogation," said Panchkula police commissioner A S Chawla. "We shall try and confirm who provided her shelter or support while she was on the run from the police."

Soon after taking Honeypreet into the custody, a team of women cops headed by IG (crime against women) Mamta Singh interrogated her. Chawla said that she had shown some resistance but later started responding to queries.

Chawla also said that another woman who was accompanying Honeypreet, Sukhdeep Kaur, has been taken into custody. She is believed to be an active Dera Sacha Sauda supporter from Bathinda. "She was in the driver's seat of the car in which Honeypreet had come to Panchkula. We are interrogating her and verifying her antecedents," Chawla added.