Days after a retired Army colonel was arrested for allegedly attempting to abduct a senior government official's wife in Noida, a sub-inspector of sector 20 police station, where the arrest was made, was suspended on Saturday evening for negligence, with police admitting that the arrest may have been a “mis-step”. A counter-FIR has also been filed by the retired colonel’s wife, who has accused the official and his wife of assaulting him. The retired colonel, Virendra Chauhan (76), was arrested on August 14 after the woman accused him of sexual harassment, attempt to kidnap and casteist slurs. Following the arrest, Chauhan's wife and daughter, who live in the US, flew down and filed a counter FIR. CCTV footage from the park has also been provided to police. According to the counter-complaint, Chauhan and the official and his wife live in the same building and have had differences for many years, ostensibly over illegal construction by the couple. It states that on August 14, he had booked a cab to go to Agra in the morning and was walking to the park to wait for it. Retired colonel Shashi Vaid, who is part of a group of ex-Armymen rallying support for Chauhan, claimed the woman called him a "gunda". "It is possible he reacted with some amount of aggression, and the situation escalated, with the woman's husband calling police and assaulting the colonel," he alleged. SP City Arun Kumar Singh said: "There was nothing wrong with taking down an FIR but the arrest was a mis-step. Around 25-30 women had arrived at the police station and the officers must have felt pressured to take immediate action, even though the entire issue is nothing but a power struggle between the official and the colonel, a heightened dispute between neighbours," he said. According to the counter-FIR, filed against the couple and five others, the assault on Chauhan was enough to warrant an attempt to murder charge. CO Noida City 1 Avneesh Kumar said, "We arrested one person named in the counter-FIR. As of now we have no information as to the whereabouts of the official and his wife." Following the incident, both the SHO and CO of the area concerned were transferred on August 17.
