M A I N   N E W S

New twists surface in rape case
Gaganjit Barnala gets police remand
Rajmeet Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 13
A day after Gaganjit Singh Barnala, sitting MLA from Dhuri and son of Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala, was booked on the charges of rape, several new facts, or rather contradictions, have surfaced.

The family of the MLA and the alleged victim’s sister and a neighbour gave contradictory versions about the sequence of events leading to the alleged rape. Ms Harpreet Kaur, wife of the MLA, categorically termed it as a frame-up as she was not informed about the development despite being in touch with the doctors at the hospital. Before reaching the MLA’s flat, the victim had visited some other houses after leaving for her Nayagaon residence, revealed investigations by The Tribune .

“With a view to reaching the fact, investigation of the case was today transferred to the Crime Branch”, said the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Chandigarh, Mr Gaurav Yadav. The DNA samples of the accused and the victim were taken for forensic investigation by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL). In the evening, sleuths of the crime branch recorded the statement of the MLA’s family members, his security staff who took the victim to the Sector 16 General Hospital and the Nayagaon-based family members of the victim.

The accused was today remanded to one-day police custody by the Duty Magistrate, Mr Atul Marya, after being produced in the district courts at about 1.30 pm amidst a strong presence of the MLA’s supporters who raised slogans against the police. The police had sought a three-day police remand as the accused had not been interrogated as he was in a state of shock. Defence counsel opposed the police remand as no recovery had been made.

While the police kept the victim — a 45-year-old divorcee — away from the prying eyes of the media claiming that she could be influenced to change her statement, Ms Harpreet Kaur Barnala, wife of the MLA, today told media persons at the Sector 7 residence of Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, that the victim had been beaten up by her younger sister, Seeta and her nephew, Sonu, over some property dispute of their one-room tenement in Gobind Nagar, Nayagaon, located on the north-western outskirts of Chandigarh. The beating had resulted in the bleeding, claimed Ms Barnala while adding that between 2 pm and 8 pm there was no case in the hospital and suddenly a case of rape was made out. “ An aged Sikh man from Nayagaon was allowed to meet the victim after the rape allegation cropped up,” she alleged.

“In the morning after I came from the railway station to receive my son who came by the Shatabdi Express around 12.45 p.m, the victim came to the house complaining that she had pain in her stomach. I offered her three slices of bread and tea”, said Ms Barnala.

“Then I called up Dr Sachdeva at the MLA hostel who directed me to take the victim to the General Hospital. At about 1.45 pm, my driver called me up to say that no one was attending on her. At 2.45 pm., I went to meet her and she said she was feeling cold. She told me to inform her condition to her neighbour, Neelu but not to her younger sister”, said Ms Harjeet Kaur.

The younger sister of the victim, Seeta Dass, contradicted the statement of Ms Barnala that she and her son had beaten the victim. “Slight argument did take place as we had been asked to move out of the house owned by the victim”, said a visibly shaken Seeta while talking to The Tribune team from her one-room sandy tenement in Nayagaon.

“Ms Barnala sent her driver at about 7 pm to take us to the MLA flat. From there I and my son went to the Sector 16 General Hospital. But I was not allowed to meet my sister”, she said while recalling the sequence of events. The neighbour of the victim, Neelu, whom Ms Barnala repeatedly mentioned in her interview, refused that she had heard any commotion between the victim and Seeta.

“She met me before leaving for work at about 7 am. She was a religious lady and used to speak less. Her messages from clients were received on my phone. She can never make a false allegation against anyone. An aged Sikh man used to often help her out and visited her at the hospital yesterday”, said Neelu.