IAS officer’s daughter stalked; BJP chief’s son gets bail

No matter who you are or the power you and your parents hold, stalking or causing harm to another person is a crime, and should not be spared.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today granted bail to Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala’s son Vikas Barala, who has been booked on charges of stalking and attempting to abduct a 29-year-old woman. Barala, 23, had been lodged in jail since August last year.

“The bail of Vikas Barala has been approved by Justice Lisa Gill,” Barala’s counsel Vinod Ghai said.

He said that the defense told the court that the accused would not influence anybody in the case.

“No application was moved by the prosecution in the court on whether the alleged accused has so far tried to influence anybody in the matter,” he said.

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Ghai claimed that no case of attempting to abduct Varnika Kundu, the daughter of a senior IAS officer, was made out against his client. He alleged that at the time of registration of the FIR, the woman’s father and her counsel were present at the police station and there were chances that the entire story was manipulated.

Her cross-examination was held in the district court on January 9 and yesterday.

The high court had last month directed the district court to complete the cross-examination of Kundu before January 11 when it had listed the bail plea for consideration. The lower court in Chandigarh had rejected the bail application of Barala four times.

On December 7, the high court had granted bail to him to appear in an examination on December 18 under police custody.

Vikas Barala, who has been lodged in Burail jail here, is pursuing a law degree from the Kurukshetra University. His counsel had sought a regular bail last month from the high court, submitting his client had been behind bars for four months. The woman had accused Barala and Kumar of stalking and attempting to abduct her.

Charges were framed against Vikas Barala and his 27-year-old friend, Ashish Kumar, in connection with the case, which had triggered widespread outrage and a spate of protests across the country.

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The two men were arrested on the intervening night of August 4-5 last year following the complaint but were released on bail as they were booked under bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Motor Vehicles Act.

After being accused of showing leniency in the case, the Chandigarh police imposed tougher charges — Section 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) and Section 511 (Punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) — on 23-year-old Vikas and one of his friends.

The police had then claimed that the new charges were pressed after interrogation of the duo threw up new facts. The state BJP chief had also assured that the probe would not be tampered with and that Ms. Kundu was “like my daughter”.