Gurgaon:
Gopal Goyal Kanda, the Haryana minister who resigned after a young woman named him in her suicide note earlier this week, will be questioned by the Delhi Police today. Geetika Sharma, an air hostess who worked for Mr Kanda's airline, killed herself on the weekend. Mr Kanda had asked the police to give him three days to study his company's documents. The police refused his request.
(Timeline: An air hostess, a politician & a suicide note)After the police charged him with abetment to suicide, Mr Kanda quit as Minister of State for Home in the Congress government in Haryana. On Tuesday, new charges of criminal intimidation were registered against him - Ms Sharma's family has accused him of blackmailing and threatening the 23-year-old, driving her to suicide. They say a phone call from him hours before Ms Sharma killed herself left her visibly upset. Mr Kanda has refuted the charges, saying that cellphone records will establish that he had not been in touch with the air hostess for the last two months. But the police has detained today one of his employees, whose cellphone was allegedly used by the politician to call Ms Sharma.
(Kanda: Politics, wealth & criminal cases)From 2006 to 2009, Ms Sharma flew with MDLR, an airline owned by the politician. When the company went under, she moved to the UAE to fly with Emirates Airlines. She returned to India in 2011 and joined another company owned by Mr Kanda, Super Sonic, which deals with cables. He also told NDTV that if he had been harassing the air hostess, her parents would not have allowed her to work for him a second time.
Ms Sharma's family alleges that when she was in the UAE, she was harassed and blackmailed by Mr Kanda and Anuradha Chaddha, one of his senior executives, to return to Delhi and work for him.
She quit her job at his company in May because she wanted to study for an MBA. Mr Jkanda says his firm loaned her several lakhs for her course.