3 walk free in abduction, assault case

Chandigarh, March 19

A local court today acquitted three businessmen of the charges of abduction and assault in a 2008 case.

Rajesh Bhardwaj, Naresh Garg and Ankur Bhardwaj were booked on the complaint of S Radhesh, then senior intelligence officer, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Kochi, Kerala.

The complainant had stated that he had come to the city on April 24, 2008, as a part of a team investigating a case. They went to Rajesh’s house in Sector 22 and told him to come along with them to the Sector 17 office for an inquiry. Rajesh, however, asked Radhesh to sit with him in his car. Radhesh sat in Rajesh’s car, which was driven away from the car in which other members of the team were travelling. As Rajesh’s car could not be spotted and Radhesh’s phone was found switched off, other officials informed the police. The car, with Radhesh in it, was later spotted at a check post in Sector 17.

Radhesh told the police that Rajesh took him to Sector 10 and left in a Honda car in which Naresh and Ankur came. The duo then took him to Sector 17 in Rajesh’s car and assaulted him on the way.

Naresh and Ankur were arrested while Rajesh got anticipatory bail in the case. During the trial, the defence counsel argued that the accused had been falsely implicated and it was not a case of abduction. Meanwhile, none of the prosecution witnesses, including the then Senior Intelligence Officer, supported the prosecution theory.  — TNS