Chandigarh, Feb 10 (IANS) A court here Wednesday sent Utsav Sharma, who attacked former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore, convicted for molesting teenager Ruchika Girhotra, to judicial custody for 14 days.
Sharma’s parents and his two friends, who had come from Varanasi, were also present in the court of civil judge Paramjit Kaur during the hearing.

However, the court has allowed the accused to move an application for bail.

Sharma, who is “mentally disturbed”, is fond of reading books on psychology as police found some books related to the subject while searching his bag. His father S.K. Sharma is a professor in the mechanical engineering department of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), while his mother Indira is a psychology teacher.

Sharma, wielding a pen-knife, thrice stabbed Rathore in the face outside the district court complex Monday.

Immediately after the attack, Chandigarh Police arrested 29-year-old Sharma, who was posing as a freelance journalist.

Sharma belongs to Varanasi and is pursuing a film production course at the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad.

He was booked under Sections 324 (Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court held Rathore guilty in December last year of molesting 15-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in Panchkula town in August 1990. She committed suicide three years later.

Rathore was sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs.1,000 in the 19-year-old molestation case. Rathore was granted bail immediately after his conviction.