A Chandigarh court on Friday framed charges of abduction against Vikas Barala, son of Haryana BJP president Subhash Barala, and his friend Ashish Kumar who were arrested for stalking Haryana IAS officer V.S. Kundu's daughter Varnika Kundu.
The court had earlier rejected the bail plea of the accused for the second time. The accused, who were arrested on August 9 for stalking and bid to abduct DJ Varnika Kundu, have been in judicial custody for over a month.
Varnika Kundu, 29, daughter of Haryana additional chief secretary V.S. Kundu, had complained to the police that the duo, who were drunk, had stalked and intimidated her and tried to abduct her on August 4-5 night. Vikas and Ashish, both of them studied law, had denied that they intended to abduct Kundu.
The stalking case had grabbed national headlines and put the IAS officer's daughter in the center of media glare. Following uproar by political parties, public and the media, the Chandigarh police was forced to re-arrested Vikas and Ashish for stalking Varnika Kundu after they were initially released on bail. The duo had chased Varnika in Chandigarh's main street. The rearrest occurred after tougher sections of the IPC were added to to the FIR. Even though Varnika had stated in her complaint that Vikas and Ashish had tried to abduct her, the cops had not first added abduction charges to the FIR but was later forced to do so.
A few days after the incident, Varnika had gone back to her DJ job. She has been performing as a DJ for six years and she was stalked when she was returning from work.
(With inputs from IANS)