New Delhi:
The Delhi High Court will today hear the bail plea of former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, wanted in connection with the suicide of former flight attendant Geetika Sharma. But the big question is: Will Mr Kanda surrender today?
On August 9, Mr Kanda's anticipatory bail plea was dismissed by a sessions court that said allegations against him were grave and serious in nature and that his application was without merit.
Mr Kanda's lawyers, while arguing for his anticipatory bail, had described Geetika as a "hypersensitive girl" who felt "jilted" by Mr Kanda. The former minister has been on the run for the past six days.
Mr Kanda, who owned the now defunct MDLR Airlines where the 23-year-old Geetika was earlier employed, was booked for abetment to her suicide and criminal intimidation. Geetika hanged herself in her north Delhi's Ashok Vihar house August 5 and left behind a suicide note, blaming Mr Kanda and a senior executive who works for him, Aruna Chadha, for her extreme step. Ms Chadha has been arrested.
Police sources, meanwhile, have told NDTV that Geetika Sharma's appointment letter from the MDLR Airlines had an unusual clause that she has to report to Mr Kanda after work hours. (
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Ms Sharma first joined MDLR, an airline owned by Mr Kanda, in 2006, when she was just 17. She tried to quit that same year, but her salary was hiked. In 2009, MDLR stopped flying and Ms Sharma moved to the UAE to work for Emirates Airways in August 2010. Just seven months later, she was back in Delhi, working for another company owned by Mr Kanda.
The police has Ms Sharma's laptop - it hopes to prove that stored there are emails sent by Mr Kanda, warning her to return to work for him. But sources say that computers at MDLR offices have been scrubbed of data that could have been incriminating for Mr Kanda.
Before he went underground, the politician told NDTV that the fact that she began a second job with him proves that she was not uncomfortable in any way around him. He denied harassing her in any way. Her family says that Mr Kanda made life so tough for Ms Sharma when she moved away, that she had no choice but to return to his turf.