Chandigarh: Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has lambasted his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar for questioning the role of the Punjab police in the Honeypreet Insaan case.

Reacting strongly to the Haryana chief minister’s reported statements alleging Punjab police complicity in the matter, Captain Amarinder asked Khattar to refrain from such fabrications to shield his own government’s failure in the Dera Sacha Sauda case.

After trying unsuccessfully to pin the blame for the Panchkula violence on the Punjab government, Khattar was now trying, once again, to divert public attention from the total collapse of the law and order that had gripped Haryana since the day Dera chief Ram Rahim was found guilty on rape charges, said Captain Amarinder.

Categorically rejecting any involvement of the Punjab government or any of its institutions in the entire episode, leading up to the arrest of Honeypreet, the Punjab Chief Minister said if the state police had any information about Honeypreet they would definitely have shared the same with the Haryana police.

Captain Amarinder pointed out that reports, in fact, suggested that some senior Haryana police officer/(s) had known of Honeypreet’s whereabouts for several days but had failed to arrest her. Instead of probing his own officials’ role in the entire affair, Khattar was simply trying to shift focus to Punjab, as he had done in the wake of the Panchkula violence, said Captain Amarinder.

The Punjab chief minister trashed Khattar’s charges that the Punjab police failed to give intelligence inputs on Honeypreet to the police in the neighbouring state. The Punjab police had been giving regular inputs to their counterparts in Haryana even before the Panchkula court hearing in the Ram Rahim case, said Captain Amarinder, adding that the Haryana government and police had failed to take cognizance or act on the information.

The chief minister made it clear that while the Punjab police had not been pursuing Honeypreet since she was not wanted in any case in the state, there was no question of shielding the `adopted daughter’ of rape convict Ram Rahim. He urged Khattar to focus on taking the case to its logical conclusion and on maintaining law and order in Haryana instead of wasting his time and energy in concocting false charges against the Punjab government and police.

It may be recalled that Punjab Police has even earlier ruled out any knowledge about Honeypreet, scotching all reports suggesting otherwise.