A war of words broke out on Thursday between the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana following the arrest of Honeypreet Insan, the adopted daughter of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who has been jailed on two counts of rape.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, talking to reporters in Panchkula, raised questions over the role of the Punjab Police saying the “Punjab police had information pertaining to Honeypreet’s presence in their State and they should have shared the information much earlier with the Haryana police.”
‘Raises suspicion’
“The way the Punjab police has worked, it raises suspicion,” he said.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh lashed out at Mr. Khattar for questioning the role of the Punjab police, saying his Haryana counterpart was trying to shield his own government’s failure in the Dera Sacha Sauda case.
“After trying unsuccessfully to pin the blame for the Panchkula violence on the Punjab government, Mr. Khattar is now trying once again to divert public attention from the total collapse of law and order that had gripped Haryana since the day Dera chief Ram Rahim was found guilty on rape charges,” Mr. Singh said.
Rejecting any involvement of the Punjab government or any of its institutions in the episode, leading up to the arrest of Honeypreet, the Punjab Chief Minister said if his State police had any information about Honeypreet, they would definitely have shared the same with the Haryana police. Mr. Singh said reports suggested that some senior Haryana police officers had known of Honeypreet’s whereabouts for several days but had failed to arrest her.
‘Officials’ role’
“Instead of probing his own officials’ role in the entire affair, Mr. Khattar is simply trying to shift the focus to Punjab, as he had done in the wake of the Panchkula violence,” he said.
The Punjab Chief Minister trashed Mr. Khattar’s charges that the Punjab police failed to give intelligence inputs on Honeypreet to the police in the neighbouring state.
“The Punjab police had been giving regular inputs to their counterparts in Haryana even before the Panchkula court hearing in the Ram Rahim case,” he said, adding that the Haryana government and its police had failed to take cognizance of the information or act on it.