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VIP kids high on booze and crime

Arvind Chabra & Amit Sharma

CHANDIGARH/LUCKNOW, MAY 6: They drive around in luxury cars, wield mobile phones, some times flaunt their guns, get into brawls and mostly get away. They are the new generation of VIP kids -- birds of that feather flock together, almost always.

Manu Sharma, son of Congress leader and former Union Minister Venod Sharma, who allegedly shot Jessica Lal, and Vikas Yadav, son of Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party leader D.P. Yadav, who accompanied him, brought to Delhi last week a familiar scene from their state capitals, Chandigarh and Luknow.

Chandigarh has witnessed several such incidents involving children of politicians and bureaucrats. Here are some:

  • June 8, 1998: Manoj Kumar, nephew of Haryana Home Minister Mani Ram Godara, was allegedly involved in a shootout at the Sector 10 market. He was arrested from Panchkula after the death of an SAS Nagar resident Manjit Singh. According to the prosecution, the firing followed an altercation between two groups outside Hotel Mountview.

    Godara issued apress note to clarify that the accused was not residing with him. ``The law would take its own course, if Manoj had committed any crime,'' he had said. The case is pending in the district court where Manoj Kumar is facing trial under section 302 of the IPC.

  • July 1998: When Harvinder Singh, an alleged accomplice of Manoj Kumar, was being produced in court, a group of not less than 25 gun-toting youths led by Manjit Singh Barkandi, a Punjab MLA, exchanged fire with another group outside the Sector 17 District Courts. The Barkandi group was supporting Harvinder Singh.

  • July 1998: A gunman with Aman Beniwal, nephew of Haryana MLA Vidya Beniwal, allegedly shot and wounded a security guard at a cinema hall. The gunman had fired from his service carbine allegedly at the insistence of Aman following an argument with the security guards.

  • September, 1996: Ranjit Bajaj, son of bureaucrats B R and Rupan Deol Bajaj, assaulted a cyclist with a baseball bat.

  • March, 1996:Former Punjab minister Bhagwan Dass Arora's son Kamaldeep Arora accompanied by his gunmen Harpal Singh and Joginder Singh, allegedly kidnapped a shopkeeper and robbed him of Rs 17,000.

  • September, 1994: Gurkirat Singh, grandson of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, along with his friends, abducted a French tourist, Katia Darnand, from a a house in SAS Nagar. She was allegedly `molested'. Gurkirat and others were acquitted on April 10, 1999, as Darnand did not testify.

    Such incidents are common in Lucknow too. But there's a difference: If in Chandigarh, there are cases registered against the new generation of VIPs, in UP most cases are hushed up. Here are some of the widely reported incidents:

  • Two years ago, three drunk youths barged into a discotheque in a five-star hotel in Lucknow. They misbehaved with the staff and also made lewd remarks to girls. On being resisted, one of them shot in the air. Akhilesh Yadav, son of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, was one of thethree. The hotel staff tried to lodge an FIR.

  • A similar scene was enacted last year in another prominent hotel. This time also, it was a group of three drunk youths and the venue was a discotheque.

    The police swung into action and arrested all the three. They were freed the next day and the Circle Officer, Sriparna Ganguly who gathered the courage to take action against them, was unceremoniously moved out. One of the three youths was the son of Matwar Singh Kandari, a minister in the Kalyan Singh cabinet. The case was never opened again.

  • Two youths in a Gypsy tried to abduct the daughter of a former advisor to the Governor last year near K.D.Singh Babu stadium in broad daylight. One was the son of PWD Minister Kalraj Mishra and the other, the son of senior IPS officer C D Kainth. The girl brought the matter to the notice of the Hazratganj police station but the two offenders were not even questioned.

    In most cases involving sons of VIPs, police never register an FIR and when pressure ismounted, often fake FIRs are lodged. For instance, when IG Yashpal Singh's son crushed to death two scooterists while riding the official Gypsy of his father at Gomti Nagar Barrage last year, the police lodged a report that the Gypsy had been stolen two days before the incident. Later the report was transferred to the CB-CID, considered to be the dumping ground of cases.

    ``We are aware that by not taking action against these wards we are not giving out a healthy message to the society. But what can we do? Was not the Circle Officer of Hazratganj transferred when she dared to arrest the son of a minister?'' says a senior police officer.

    Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

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