After facing flak for slapping mild charges against the three accused allegedly involved in outraging the modesty of a 19-year-old girl,the police on Sunday were in the process of adding abduction charges against the accused. The victim,Komal Kohli,was called again for recording her statement in which she reiterated that the accused tried to drag her into their vehicle. Komal told the police that she was thrashed in full public glare near the Sector-42 market by three miscreants who tried to drag her into their white Swift car after she retaliated against their attack. Following her statement,police sources said Section 365 of the IPC (kidnapping/abduction) would also be added to the existing FIR which was registered on September 19. Initially,the accused were booked for assault or applying criminal force to a woman with intent to outrage her modesty (Section 354 of IPC); voluntarily causing hurt (Section 323 of IPC) and furtherance of common intention (Section 34 of IPC). Komals father Harish Kohli said,Today my daughters statement was recorded again in the presence of Sector 36 SHO Bhupinder Singh and investigating officer of the case Sub-Inspector Jagdish Chander. We have been told that this will be used as a supplementary statement and charges of abduction will also be included in the existing FIR. He said,This should have been done earlier. This morning the relatives of Karan,who is one of the accused,came to our home and sought an apology saying their son was only present in the car and was not party to the offence. However,we are very clear that all the accused should be punished so that nobody else ever thinks of doing something as horrific as this. Senior Superintendent of Police Naunihal Singh said,Today we again recorded Komals statement as she had said that her initial statement had not been recorded properly. We will now investigate the case as per her statement that has been recorded today. Despite having mentioned in the FIR,a copy of which is with Chandigarh Newsline,that one of the accused asked the other two to pull Komal into the car,with an intention to abduct her,the three miscreants were not booked on charges of abduction. Around 3.30 pm on September 19,Komal and her friend Himani Khurana,both final year BA students,were on their way to the local bus stop from the girls college in Sector 42 when the three miscreants allegedly started misbehaving with them. As Komal retaliated,the incident turned violent. Komal was allegedly thrashed and the accused tried to pull her into the vehicle. However,Komal resisted and raised the alarm. Following this,two of the accused were nabbed while the third fled away but was later arrested. The accused,all in their early twenties,Lakhbir,Karan and Khushwinder,were arrested but released on bail within a few hours.
