A woman says Vikas Barala, son of Haryana BJP chief, and his friend attempted to kidnap her.
The father of the
29-year-old woman who was chased through the streets of Chandigarh post-midnight on Saturday -- allegedly by the son of a senior BJP leader and his friend - says the political link of the family of the accused makes the situation "complicated", but they would not backtrack in the battle for justice.
"I am sad that a family is involved and that family is high profile, so the issue is becoming different," said the bureaucrat, who described his daughter's ordeal in a moving Facebook post. "If they (the guilty) aren't punished, there will be other boys who will also be getting these ideas." But he also made it clear that only the guilty should be punished, not their families.
Vikas Barala, son of Haryana BJP president Subhash Barala and his friend Ashish, who were arrested on Saturday, are out on bail. The police have filed cases against them for alleged stalking and drink driving.
At a media conference yesterday, asked why the two had not been accused under the harsher, non-bailable charge of kidnapping, senior police officer Satish Kumar said there has been no "dilution" of the charges.
"In the statement, she doesn't mention anywhere directly that there was an attempt to kidnap her," said Mr Kumar. "After receiving a copy of the complaints statement to the JM we have added IPC Section 341 (wrongful restraint). We haven't diluted FIR. We have, in fact, added a section."
The Facebook post of the woman, titled "Was almost kidnapped on a Chandigarh road last night", says the men chased her in a car, got out, banged on the window of her car and tried to pull open the door. In her complaint to the police, a copy of which is with NDTV, she wrote, "To me it was very cleared that these boys intended to abduct me even tried to open the door" (sic).
Asked if the family was under pressure given the
political connections of the man accused, the girl's father denied that there was any. "I am a citizen of the country. If someone else is influencing decisions there the system has to take care of it," he said.
In his Facebook post, he wrote that he would fail in his duty if he did not stand with his daughter. "I feel if people with some privileges like us cannot stand up to such criminals, nobody in India can... Someone has to stand up. We are standing. So long as we can."