Not the first case of kin embarrassing Barala

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 7

The stalking incident in which his son Vikas Barala was arrested and later released on bail is not the first criminal act of his kin to have become cause of embarrassment for state BJP president Subhash Barala.

On May 7, Vikram Barala, alias Vicky, a grandson of Barala’s elder brother, was booked for kidnapping a minor girl from Badhai Khera village in Fatehabad district, the ancestral village of the state BJP chief.

The girl had gone out of her house at 8 pm on the pretext of performing puja in a temple when Vicky allegedly took her away on a motorcycle.

Villagers had blocked the Hisar-Chandigarh road the next day demanding the girl’s recovery after one of them noticed Vicky going to a dhani on the outskirt of the village with the girl, but the duo slipped out from there when the villagers reached there.

While the villagers were still blocking the road on May 8, the police informed them that the girl had been sent to Nari Niketan in Karnal on the order of the court.

The police had said that the girl had given a statement before the court that she had gone on her own and she did not want to go to the house of her parents, but the clandestine manner in which the police produced the girl before the court and then took her to Karnal left serious question mark on its functioning.

Villagers had alleged that the police worked under Barala’s influence to save Vikram.

Barala himself had tried to distance himself by saying that Vikram was only remotely related to him. Later, the police registered an FIR against several villagers for blocking the national highway.

Last month, another case of causing hurt, wrongful restraint and criminal intimidation was registered against Vikram Barala when he was found taking away a youth in his car’s dickey after thrashing him badly.

Pardeep Kumar, SHO, Tohana Sadar police station, confirmed that a case under Sections 323, 341, 506 and 427 of the IPC was registered against Vicky 20 days back. However, the police were yet to arrest him, he said.

Regarding the alleged kidnapping of a minor girl, the SHO said that the FIR still stood against Vicky’s name.