Chandigarh, August 11: Vikas Barala, son of Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala, and co-accused Ashish Kumar, who were remanded in two-day police custody on Thursday and have been charged with bid to kidnap Varnika Kundu, 29, are learnt to have denied before police that they either stalked or made any bid to kidnap her. They, however, have admitted that they were in a car seen in the CCTV footage procured for the Stalking case.
It was only when they were brought to the police station that they were told of a complaint by a girl of stalking, they have now claimed.
Police sources said Barala was confronted with the CCTV footage from five cameras procured from along the route where Varnika was allegedly stalked on August 4 night. Barala was driving the vehicle and Ashish was sitting along his side. Barala was driving the vehicle, but denied stalking Varnika. He said he was going to Panchkula to drop Ashish, who stays there. When they were picked up by the police from the Housing light point in Manimajra there was no girl at the spot, they are learnt to have told police.
In the footage the SUV of the accused is seen following Varnika’s car. There are a few points where the car can be seen driving parallel to her vehicle, it is learnt.
‘Case of media trial’: Barala in court
At Chandigarh district courts, where the duo were produced in the afternoon, lawyer representing Barala and Ashish termed the case a “media trial” and that section for kidnapping bid was added “under pressure”. The defence counsel, Surya Prakash, stated that the accused were cooperating in the investigation for the past five days; they appeared on Wednesday after they were summoned and had already been interrogated, so the need for remand was unjustified.
“There was no exchange of words between the accused and the woman, neither did they continue to follow her. If the intention was to abduct they would have followed her to the end,” the lawyer deposed before the court, adding, “There were no weapons with them either.” The defence even took a dig at the prosecution, stating that if they had been unable to reconstruct the scene so far, how it would be possible for them to do so in two days.
The police had argued for remand, claiming that it was “need of the hour” to “reconstruct the scene”.
