'Illicit relation between Dera chief & Honeypreet'

Chandigarh, Sept 22: Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s “adopted daughter” Honeypreet’s ex-husband Vishwas Gupta on Friday accused them of having illicit relations and said their father-daughter relationship was a sham to fool followers and others.

“Which father makes his daughter sleep on his bed? She always used to be with him,” said Gupta, since divorced from Honeypreet. “She never slept with me. Every night, she was with him (Ram Rahim). The sect chief virtually made me a captive and did not allow my (then) wife Honeypreet to come to me,” Gupta told the media here.

Gupta, whose family was a staunch dera follower, was married to Honeypreet in 2009 at the behest of Ram Rahim. Honeypreet’s real me is Priyanka Taneja and she hails from Fatehabad town in Harya. Gupta moved the court for divorce in 2011. He claimed that he saw Ram Rahim and Honeypreet in a compromising situation in the dera chief’s ‘gufa’ or private accommodation on the sprawling campus near Sirsa town in Harya.

“The baba threatened to get me and my family elimited if I uttered anything about what I had seen. My life was ruined,” said Gupta, who has since remarried. Gupta said Ram Rahim also got him and his parents booked in a dowry case, and even ordered that he (Gupta) be elimited.

“After the threat, I left for my home. Two guards (of Ram Rahim) were given orders to elimite me. We left the dera in July 2011 and shifted to Panchkula. My father had sold all our properties and invested in the dera campus. In Panchkula, I was trailed by dera followers,” claimed Gupta, whose grandfather was a legislator from Gharaunda in Harya and father a government engineer. Gupta claimed the dera chief forced him and his family to publicly seek forgiveness from him.

Honeypreet, in her mid-30s, is on the run since August 25, hours after Ram Rahim was convicted by a CBI Special Court in Panchkula for the rape of two female followers. He was sentenced to 20-year rigorous imprisonment and is now lodged in the District Jail at Suria near Rohtak.

The Harya Police have booked Honeypreet on charges of inciting violence, sedition, and conspiracy to help Ram Rahim escape after his conviction. She tops the list of 43 dera activists on the ‘most wanted’ list of the Harya Police. Honeypreet has been the closest aide of Ram Rahim since 2007. Honeypreet has been Ram Rahim’s heroine in five films he directed, produced and acted in, in three years. Her clout was said to be even more than the baba’s family, including wife, son and two daughters. (IANS)