Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 18 (IANS) A Delhi court Saturday sent former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, accused of abetting the suicide of former flight attendant Geetika Sharma, to seven days police custody for his questioning.

Metropolitan Magistrate Devender Kumar Jangala sent Kanda to police custody for questioning, recovering documents and computer hard drives missing from his office and collection of details of email addresses and phone call records.

The investigators had sought his remand for 14 days but the court allowed only a week’s police remand questioning.

Police said they wanted to confront Kanda with documents recovered till now.

Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan, while seeking 14 days remand of Kanda, said that he was the only source through whom the case-related documents and evidence could be collected.

Senior advocate Ramesh Gupta, appearing for Kanda, opposed the police plea saying that granting police custody of his client would not serve any purpose.

He said that investigators had already searched his house and office so there was no need for his police custody.

Gupta also added that Kanda “is not an absconder as termed by police” and his client surrendered himself in a police station here early morning.

Kanda was arrested after he surrendered.

Kanda was on the run since Aug 8 after Sharma, 23, accused him and another official of his now-defunct MDLR Airlines, Aruna Chaddha, of harassing her and forcing her to commit suicide. She died on the night of Aug 4-5 at her house in north Delhi’s Ashok Vihar. Chaddha is in judicial custody.

The former Haryana minister owned the MDLR Airlines where Sharma worked as a flight attendant. After the airlines ceased to function in 2009, Sharma was given a job in another company owned by him.

The Delhi High Court Friday dismissed Kanda’s anticipatory bail plea, observing that despite being a “free man”, he himself did not file the application and it was a “sufficient” ground for its rejection.

Kanda, who was forced to resign as minister of state for home and urban local bodies in Haryana in the face of public outcry over Geetika’s suicide, was booked for abetment to suicide by Delhi Police.