Honeypreet gets bail in 2017 case
PANCHKULA: A court on Wednesday granted bail to Honeypreet Insan, adopted daughter of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, in a case pertaining to violence in Haryana’s Panchkula in 2017.
Honeypreet had moved her plea on Wednesday morning, four days after a court dropped sedition charges against her and 39 others. Dera spokesperson Aditya Insan and other core committee members were also booked for the violence.
Forty-one people have been arrested by the police and five, including Aditya Insan, were declared proclaimed offenders by a court last year.
According to a chargesheet filed by the police, Honeypreet and the 45-member Dera management committee made a plan to unleash violence if Gurmeet Ram Rahim was convicted in the rape case.
The conspiracy was hatched at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa at a meeting on August 17, 2017, the police said.
The prosecution said that Gurmeet Ram Rahim, Aditya Insan and Honeypreet attended the meeting.
It had argued that it was decided in the meeting that Dera f oll owers carrying st i cks, umbrellas, petrol and chili powder should gather in Panchkula by August 25, 2017 and go on the rampage if Gurmeet Ram Rahim was held guilty and arrested.
When the court had dropped the sedition charges last Saturday, Honeypreet’s counsel Dhruv Gupta said it was a “good ground” to apply for bail.
Honeypreet has been in judicial custody at the Ambala central jail since October 2017.
The August 2017 violence by Dera followers after a CBI court convicted the Gurmeet Ram Rahim led to the deaths of 42 people. Around 200 criminal cases were registered against Dera followers and over 1,000 of them were arrested.
A court on Saturday dropped sedition charges against Honeypreet Insan and 39 others in a case pertaining to violence in Panchkula in 2017 following Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s conviction in two rape cases.
Defence counsel Raj Singh Chauhan said, “As the police has failed to submit incriminating evidence against the accused to back up sedition charges, the court has dropped sections 121 (waging, or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war against government) and 121-A (conspiracy to commit offences) of the Indian Penal Code against Honeypreet and other accused.”