Cops zero in on her hideout trail, finally

PANCHKULA: Police said during the interrogation of Honeypreet they have found that she returned to the Dera Sacha Sauda headquarters in Sirsa the day she was last seen outside the Rohtak’s Sunaria jail where the sect head was lodged after his conviction on August 25.

She travelled along with the dera chief in a chopper from Panchkula soon after he was convicted by a CBI court. After she went into hiding, there were reports that she was in Nepal and other places before she was finally arrested from the Zirakpur-Patiala highway last week.

A police official said they have confirmed leads that she stayed inside the dera for at least two days and then left for dera chief’s ancestral Gurusar Modia village in Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar district, after coming to know that Panchkula police had issued a lookout notice for in connection with the August 25 violence.

“She stayed around the village for over two weeks before the Panchkula police raided the place to arrest her,” said an official.

Then the police raided some places in Uttar Pradesh. She is believed to have gone to Jangirana village in Punjab’s Bathinda, where police conducted searches on Wednesday searching for her mobile phone and laptop, said the official. Heraide-Sukhdeep-Kaur, who was arrested along with her, took her to the village where the cousin of her husband stays.

Officials said that it was from Bathinda that she went to Delhi to meet her lawyer to file anticipatory bail in the Delhi high court but did not return to the village.

She then shifted to a house in Muktsar before getting arrested, said police. Panchkula police commissioner AS Chawla said Honeypreet denied living there but sources have verified her stay in Punjab and Rajathan.

Sources said after Wednesday’s search in Bathinda, the police left for Sri Ganganagar along with Honeypreet to dig out more details of her stay. She may be taken to Sirsa on Thursday.