How Honeypreet’s husband was made to compromise with dera
CHANDIGARH: It was Valentine’s Day (February 14) in 1999 when Vishwas Gupta was asked by Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to marry Priyanka Taneja in a simple ceremony of exchanging garlands at Sirsa.
Taneja, who was later named Honeypreet and adopted by the dera head, shares his quirky fondness for bling and movies. She reckons herself as “Papa’s angel” in her Twitter handle, besides an actor and film director. She is the only one with whom the “Rockstar Baba” shared screen space in real and reel life.
On Friday, she was the only one from “family” to accompany Gurmeet to the CBI court that pronounced him guilty of rape and flew with him in a chopper to the Rohtak jail as his “attendant”.
And an attendant of the dera chief is what she was all through her marriage, says MS Joshi, a Chandigarh-based lawyer, who later got Vishwas bail in a dowry case filed in Sirsa.
Vishwas’ father, Mohinder Pal, a retired executive engineer, and grandfather Rulia Ram, a two-time Haryana MLA, had their own clout in Gharaunda in Haryana, the seat he represented. But they were ardent followers of Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda since days of its former head Shah Satnam Ji and the Baba’s word was command.
“Vishwas was taken to Bangkok and hill stations in India with Honeypreet, who used to stay inside the babaji’s room. In May 2011, she stayed with Ram Rahim at a Kodaikanal hotel. In June, he saw them together in an objectionable position at the dera. He was beaten up by Ram Rahim and told to stay mum. After 11 years of marriage, Vishwas moved out of the dera to Sector 15 in Panchkula with his parents in July, Joshi recalls.
What followed was straight out of a Bollywood flick. A team of dera strongmen, led by one Pradeep Singh, who was later arrested, started clocking his every movement. Vishwas moved the Punjab and Haryana high court for protection in October, accusing the dera chief and Honeypreet of adultery.
The father-son also addressed a press conference and gave an interview to a TV channel.
The dera hit back with full force and vengeance. Honeypreet filed a case of dowry after 11 years of marriage, claiming Vishwas was demanding ₹2 lakh from her. “The Guptas had ancestral property and his father had retirement benefits. Why would the family demand ₹2 lakh,” says Joshi, a self-professed dera follower who fought their civil suits for many years.
More was in the offing. Vishwas was soon facing an FIR in a cheque bounce case filed in Gujarat and another in Rajasthan. His petition to court says a sale deed of his 11 kanal ancestral land had also been forcibly executed in favour of the dera.
“There was time when Vishwas was left with no money to fight the court cases and fear to life was always looming. They even came to us at times walking or in rickshaws. It was as if the might of the whole state was against them,” says Joshi, hinting that there was a Congress government in Haryana then.
The pressure proved backbreaking for the Guptas. Though a Sirsa court granted Vishwas anticipatory bail in the dowry case, the Guptas first went underground and finally sought a widely-publicised apology before the dera chief and the sangat (followers).
All court cases were withdrawn with mutual consent, including the divorce.
Now remarried, Vishwas has started his new life at Panipat. “He met me recently. He has a daughter, while Honeypreet and he had no children after 11 years of marriage. Why would a man (dera chief), who has two daughters of his own, adopt another? Minors are adopted not married girls,” Joshi adds.
He is not aware of what else was offered to Vishwas as part of the peace deal. But silence was one of them.