Ashish Kumar’s bail plea dismissed

Chandigarh, January 18

A local court today dismissed the bail plea of Ashish Kumar, one of the accused in the Varnika Kundu stalking case. Other accused in the case, Vikas Barala, was granted bail by the High Court last week. The court of Rajnish Kumar Sharma, Additional District Judge, dismissed Kumar’s bail plea.

The order reads that co-accused Vikas Barala’s bail was also rejected by the same court. It adds that the allegations against Kumar are serious and thus there are no grounds on which regular bail should be granted to him. Without further commenting on the merits of the case, the court dismissed the bail application.

In its reply to the bail application, the prosecution had pointed out that a criminal case of abetment to suicide has been registered against Kumar in Hansi district of Haryana. It thus said that Kumar had concealed material facts from the court making another argument that Kumar has twice been denied bail by the district courts instead of only once as mentioned in his bail plea.

Kumar’s bail plea had stated that Barala has already been released on bail and thus keeping him in custody served no purpose any longer.

The bail application also stated that the cross-examination of Varnika was over and that she failed to mention kidnapping in her initial complaint thereby alleging the concocted nature of the FIR. The police failing to supply CCTV footage, media coverage of the case and presence of a lawyer during filing of the FIR were other factors mentioned in the application.

Vikas and Ashish had allegedly followed Varnika’s car and tried to abduct her post-midnight in August last year. The girl called the police and the boys were nabbed. — TNS