Chandigarh stalking case: Another relative of Haryana BJP chief accused of kidnapping minor girl

Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala’s son Vikas, accused of allegedly stalking and attempting to kidnap Varnika Kundu in Chandigarh, is not the only Barala family member to have been involved in a case of violence against women. According to NDTV, a case has been filed against Subash’s relative Vikram Barala aka Vicky, for allegedly kidnapping a minor girl from their ancestral village in Fatehabad. [caption id=“attachment_3908651” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Vikas Barala. CNN-News 18[/caption] Vikram and Vikas’s cousin Kuldeep Barala have also been accused of threatening the girl to prevent her from speaking about the kidnapping. Kuldeep, who was one of the first from the Barala household to jump to Vikas' defence , had resorted to victim shaming Varnika. He had shared a photo of the victim in a now deleted Facebook post, with two men, and had implied that she was drunk at the time of the incident to malign her character. According to Times of India, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked Haryana Police to file a status report into an investigation of allegations that Subhash’s nephew Kuldeep and others had pressured a minor girl from Fatehabad into changing her statement after she was allegedly kidnapped by Vikram in May. “Till date, no action has been taken against the respondents because they are very influential people and close relatives of MLA of the Tohana constituency (Subhash Barala). Hence, local police under their influence are not taking any action,” Times of India quoted the complainant as saying. According to NDTV, the minor girl’s lawyer had said that the accused had threatened and browbeaten the victim into keeping silent about the kidnapping. An India Today report reveals that besides the kidnapping, the accused Vikram has also been accused of beating up a youth and then locking him inside the trunk of his car. A case under section 323, 341, 506 and 427 of the IPC was registered against Vicky at a Tohana police station last month, but he is still roaming free, the report says.