Ludhiana – Today Ludhiana Session Court finally accepted bail plea of Vikram Kumar, the man who hurled shoe at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Vikram will still have to stay for another day in jail as there was no one present to pay out his bail amount.
The court of SP Sood, additional sessions judge at Ludhiana, granted bail to Bikram and accomplices Mahinderpal Singh and Harvinder Singh.
The court set aside the orders of bail rejection passed by the court of Harjinder Singh, judicial magistrate first class, Khanna.
Barnala-based lawyer Rajdev Singh Khalsa, who pleaded Vikram’s bail application before the court, said, “I argued the case mainly on three points. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had glorified Jarnail Singh, who had hurled a shoe at then union home minister P Chidambaram. Chidambaram had forgiven the shoe-thrower. Badal, too, forgave the shoe-thrower initially, but after two days, Bikram was implicated in a false case as there was no DDR registered on August 15 for tearing off the uniform of sub-inspector Manjit Singh.”
Khalsa said, “The shoe had fallen at least 50 feet away from the target. It showed that Bikram did not want to hurt the chief minister. It was just a symbolic protest due to unemployment of the youth. My third argument was that even in murder cases, senior police officials are usually not present at the hearing. But in this case, officials of SP and DSP rank were present, which clearly established that the police, instead of being fair, were trying to please their political bosses.”
Meanwhile, Bikram’s wife, Nisha, was not aware of the development. When contacted in the evening, she said, “I have just come out of the Ludhiana jail after meeting Bikram. It seems I will have to approach the high court for bail.”
Reacting to the development, Punjab Congress spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira said, “It is a welcome step that will save an unemployed youth from the wrath of the Badal clan. It is unfortunate that the chief minister, who had publicly announced to forgive Bikram, backtracked later.”
Sangrur MP Bhagwan Mann said, “It is clear now that the police concocted the story of assault and tearing off of uniform just for political reasons. The SAD gave a political colour to the incident only to defame the Aam Aadmi Party. Instead of concentrating on ‘who’, they should find out as to ‘why’ the shoe was hurled. It was out of sheer frustration that the unemployed youth did this.”