MUMBAI, February 9: The Bombay High Court today granted bail to Pune-based college girl Vidya Kale, who had been behind bars for kidnapping a six-year-old girl Vaishnavi Sose. Though the trial court in Pune had denied her bail, the Bombay High Court granted it today in view of Vidya's final exams in March.However, after the bail order is executed, she has been ordered by Justice V R Datar to see the Deccan Gymkhana police every alternate day. The court has also ordered a surety payment of Rs 5,000 and a bond of Rs 4,000 for release on bail.
The 18-year-old girl's alleged offence has stunned the Pune police, especially since the girl comes from a very well-to-do background. More shocking is their revelation that the kidnapping was preceded by a series of car thefts, committed by Vidya. Police investigations also revealed that the girl was involved in an attempt at house-breaking in Kothrud area.
When questioned about the kidnapping, Vidya attributed the act to her need for money to buy a motorbike. Shesaid her father, a timber merchant, had refused to buy her a bike. Therefore, she had to hatch a plan to get easy money. She telephoned Vaishnavi's parents to inform them that she had kidnapped their daughter, and asked them to come with a ransom of Rs 50,000 near Mehendale garage. When Ganesh Sose came to give the amount, she told him that her brother had been kidnapped and she needed the money to pay the ransom. She took the money and later brought back Vaishnavi in a rickshaw, as promised.
After the entire drama got over in three hours, the Sose couple, unable to digest Vidya's sob story, complained to the police. The police asked the six-year-old about the place where she had been kept by Vidya. The locked residential flat used by the accused and a stolen moped in the building pointed an accusing finger at a college girl. To their utter surprise, they found the accused Vidya was the same person arrested in a car theft a month ago.
Minutes after Vidya was taken into custody, she confessed that she hadkidnapped Vaishnavi and threatened her parents. Surprisingly, Vidya's parents didn't know she had buried Rs 50,000 in their house, until the police retrieved the ransom amount.
Interestingly, Vidya's advocate Uday Warunjikar also finds it ``difficult to believe'' that she kidnapped the six-year-old girl and managed to get a ransom single-handedly. He said the police must now see whether the girl has been misled by unknown factors.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
