Honeypreet Insan

Honeypreet Insan, born Priyanka Taneja, is a public figure of the Dera Sacha Sauda. Scroll reports that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of the Dera, adopted her in 2009, and that she was one of his most frequent collaborators on the Dera's MSG films, acting in them and sharing credit for co-directing three. Scroll, citing Hindustan Times, adds that she was seen as his likely successor and that her voice carried weight in the Dera. Her place in this record is the Panchkula violence case.

Panchkula, August 2017

On 25 August 2017 a CBI special court in Panchkula convicted Ram Rahim of rape, and he was sentenced on 28 August to 20 years. Violence by Dera followers followed. Reports put the dead at between about 36 and 41, with Wikipedia citing 31 to 38. Haryana Police alleged, in a chargesheet, that Honeypreet and the Dera's 45-member management committee had planned the violence in advance. These are allegations in a case that has not, in the reports we found, reached a verdict.

Key moments

• 3 October 2017: arrested by Haryana Police on the Zirakpur to Patiala road after about five weeks on the run (The Quint counts 37 days). A Panchkula court sent her to six days of police remand.
• February 2018: the police Special Investigation Team's chargesheet named her among 22 accused of sedition, with other charges including criminal conspiracy.
• April 2019: she asked the Punjab and Haryana High Court for bail, citing her long time in custody.
• 2 November 2019: a sessions court dropped the sedition charges against her and other accused.
• 6 November 2019: a Panchkula chief judicial magistrate granted bail, and she left Ambala jail that evening. Her counsel said the remaining charges, under Sections 145, 146 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, were bailable.

She was therefore in custody for about two years, from October 2017 to November 2019. Reports of the later course of the trial were not found.

She is remembered in the record of the Dera as the Dera head's closest public associate during the 2017 crisis, and as the first of the Dera's inner circle to be arrested over the Panchkula violence.