'Abduction' of Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram's son and his girl friend rocks the nation

The high drama over the alleged abduction of the Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram's son and his college girl friend which rocked the nation last week had all the makings of a political intrigue, criminal frame-up and caste warfare. It had shades of Watergate and tinges of an exciting paperback thriller.The bizarre incident which rocked the corridors of power in New Delhi smelled of political blackmail because it involved Jagjivan Ram's son, a slim seductive fair complexioned college girl called Sushma Rani and a former aide of Ram's arch-political foe, Charan Singh, who was forced out of the cabinet recently.The dazed and bruised 40-year-old Suresh Kumar walked into the Kashmere Gate Police Station on August 21 and said he had been kidnapped the night before by a dozen hefty men. His woman companion, Sushma Rani, daughter of Choudhary Pritam Singh, was also seized along with him from his sky-blue Mercedes Benz car near Nigambodh Ghat. They were driven across the border to Modinagar in Uttar Pradesh and forced to sign documents and pose for photographs in compromising positions.The Tip: The nation was slow to react to one of the biggest news stories of recent times as few night editors realized the importance of a 200-word story put out by the United News of India (UNI) at 1.10 a.m. on August 22, when most of the morning dailies had gone to bed. The terse enigmatic ticker copy said police had raided the offices of Charan Singh's powerful farm lobby, the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sammelan (ABKS). The office at 69, South Avenue, between the Rashtrapathi Bhavan and the Teen Murti, is also the residence of a Janata member of the Lok Sabha, Ram Naresh Kashwahu. The ABKS general secretary, Mani Ram Bagri, tipped off the capital's newsrooms about the pre-midnight swoop. They were after "photographs and documents relating to a kidnapping complaint by someone called Suresh."Scoop: But on August 21, a special correspondent of the mass circulating Indian Express, Virendra Kapoor, had been shown the photographs the police were looking for. He had pleaded with his news editor to use the story. But the decision was left to the editor, Ajit Bhatacharjee who could not be contacted before midnight. Meanwhile, the story went out on the Express News Service. So the Ahmedabad edition's front page on August 22, screamed: "VVIP's son involved in sex racket." The Bombay edition had it across two columns on the front page: "VVIP's son also shines", an indirect reference to the sons of other politicians.Stirring Up: The irrepressible political jester Raj Narain summoned newsmen on Janamashtami day, August 23, to entertain and enlighten them. Ostensibly, he had summoned the newsmen to protest against the arrest of Om Pal Singh, who ran the offices of the ABKS, and K. C. Tyagi, general secretary of the Yuva Janata, who had been picked by the police outside his house. He also explained who Suresh Kumar was and how his father had tried to use his office to hush up the matter. Raj Narain refused to name the emissary from Jagjivan Ram but said that he had, as a result, sent for Om Pal Singh, who had shown him a set of obscene photographs of Suresh Kumar and Sushma Rani.Raj Narain is known for quoting from the Ramayana. But on this occasion he sounded as if he had got hold of the Kama-sutra.Lurid Details: Raj Narain described the photos: "They were like what you see at Khajuraho. In fact they were worse." Gesticulating for greater effect, he began explaining the lurid details of the sexual circus in shuddh Hindi. When he came to describing fellatio and cunnilingus, in the photographs he claimed to have seen, he found Hindi inadequate to show his indignation. "He is very perverse" (sic) he spat out in English. He claimed the photographs showed that the couple had posed willingly. "You can't force anyone to pose like that." Most newspapers blanked out Raj Narain's graphic descriptions of the photographs in the interest of good taste.Asked how Om Pal got hold of the photographs, Raj Narain said that when Om Pal met Suresh, he asked him for a cigarette. The photographs tumbled out along with the cigarette packet. Singh took them away and refused to return them though Suresh offered him a lot of money. Raj Narain claimed Singh wanted to purify public life by exposing all this. He added: "Your personal life ends with your skin. Anything beyond that is public. You can't run in the nude, on the road and say it's personal life."Tight-Lipped: While Raj Narain was painting the town a lurid yellow, Jagjivan Ram's much embarrassed camp decided to play its cards quietly, hoping the mercurial former health minister would put his foot into his mouth. Raj Narain did get a hostile press. The Indian Express headlined "Indian politics takes a nosedive." Jagjivan Ram's aides let it be known that he had not sent any emissary to Raj Narain. His men circulated Suresh Kumar's version given in the FIR. India Today's persistent requests for interviews with Jagjivan Ram or Suresh Kumar to get their versions were passed around from aide to aide but the ultimate reply was the same-"try later".The Suresh Kumar version with the police is that two taxis followed his Mercedes Benz car from the New Delhi area. When they reached a lonely stretch near the capital's main crematorium, Nigambodh Ghat, his pursuers overtook him and parked their vehicles in the middle of the road. They jumped out of the cars and whipping out their revolvers, surrounded his Mercedes. There were ten or eleven of them and they shouted that he would be killed. They opened the door of the Mercedes and made the girl sit in the rear seat and forced Suresh Kumar to drive on towards Loni Village via the Wazirabad Bridge.Suresh alleged that one of the men identified himself as Om Pal Singh. They were taken to a room inside a school where Om Pal Singh allegedly told them to write letters. One of them, Suresh Kumar had to address to Union Petroleum Minister H.N. Bahuguna. In other letters the couple were made to write out allegations against each other, Suresh Kumar claimed. He was asked to sign blank papers and when he refused, he was beaten up until he became unconscious. The girl fell into a trance and when they both regained consciousness they were told they had been photographed in compromising positions, he said. They found themselves on cots outside the school. They were let off at about 3 a.m. according to Suresh. He dropped the girl home and returned to his bungalow. Sushma Rani, in her statement to the police, has corroborated Suresh Kumar's version of the incident.Political Dynamite: When the identities of the personalities involved were finally established shock waves ran through the body politic. The tinderbox caste situation also raised its ugly head as the report of a Harijan's friendship with a Jat girl was exploited by interested parties. Said a Jat student of Delhi University: "Jat ki chori ko Harijan kaise le gaya" (How did a Harijan take one of our girls).As leaders of the Harijan community and the erstwhile Congress for Democracy (CFD) pitched themselves against the Jat and the erstwhile Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) camps, the two sides held councils of war on Saturday night, August 26, at Ram's and Charan Singh's houses. The BLD group demanded Ram's resignation.Said Samar Pal Singh, an employee of the Janata Party Central Office, who shared Om Pal Singh's one-room apartment at Vithalbhai Patel House: "Om and Tyagi were in jail during the Emergency when Babuji and his kid were enjoying themselves. How could they treat them like this."However, political commentators are aghast at the mean personal level Indian politics has been debased to. Newspaper National Herald reflected a common view when it said in its leader on August 28: "Why should a personal issue be turned into a political one? Relationship between a man and a woman can take any form and the only rule that needs to be followed is that such relationship should not prove detrimental to society." Raj Narain has implied that the security of the nation may be at stake. But this only thinly disguises his strategy to harm Jagjivan Ram, in the hope of improving Charan Singh's position in the party's political hierarchy.Survival: Jagjivan Ram has the reputation of being the only unsinkable politician in the stormy sea of Indian public life. He stayed in office though he had "forgotten" to pay his income-tax for a decade. In his personal life too, he was equally durable. Political columnist and author Janardan Thakur recounts in his All the Janata Men. "Kumar had gone about making unbelievable personal allegations against his father." He had also managed to survive the Emergency backlash that made many a mighty head roll. He is again at political crossroads. The stocky Bihari politician credited with the craftiest mind in politics may yet come through but his cherished goal of becoming the prime minister one day seems to be thwarted for the time being. He once confided to a friend: "A Harijan can never become the prime minister of this wretched country."Fears were also expressed in the BLD camp that some of their leaders may be sought to be implicated on a conspiracy charge through a deft interpretation of the Indian Penal Code.Sinning Sons: Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, the saintly arbiter of the nation's morals watched helplessly. The salvo fired against Ram would also hurt Desai if it went home on target. Ram is one of the mainstays of his shaky throne and a weakened Ram would make his position more shaky. For the time being, Desai has refused to be drawn into the controversy. "It is a police case," he cryptically told a complaining Raj Narain.The Bible warns that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon their sons. In Indian politics the opposite seems to be the case. But should it be so, is what some people ask. While one point of view holds that it is unfair for parents to be responsible for the deeds of their grown-up offsprings, the other point of view is that when both live together, their lives are inextricably bound. Gandhiji broke with his wayward son Harilal and disowned responsibility. Therefore, his son's doings did not boomerang on him. But, Desai and Ram, or for that matter Mrs Gandhi, seem reluctant to do this.It is for the courts to decide who took the pictures and how, and whose version of the incidents is correct. But the court of public opinion, which Raj Narain has invoked may indict politicians who seek to purify public life by washing dirty linen in public-in this case blue bromides.PERSONALITIES: WHO'S WHOSuresh KumarSuresh Kumar, 40, flamboyant son of Jagjivan Ram, was an MLA from the Mohania constituency in Gaya district of Bihar. He first attempted his entry into politics through the 1971 Lok Sabha elections but failed. His wife, Santosh, also tried to enter the Lok Sabha from Bihar but she too failed. Ultimately, Suresh Kumar got a seat in the Bihar Assembly in 1972 and was even offered a ministerial post but his father stopped him from joining the cabinet.After completing his full term as MLA, without attending a single session, he tried for a Janata Party ticket during the 1977 elections but his father persuaded him to give up politics. He was offered a seat in the Rajya Sabha but he offered it to J.K. P.N. Singh, the former Raja of Maqsudpur, who now lives in the Western Court, New Delhi.Sushma Rani - an artist's impressionSushma Rani:Born on February 1, 1957 in Meerut District in a farmer's family. She is 155 cms tall, and fair complexioned. Sushma met Suresh Kumar in April 1978 through an MP. Her brother, Desh Pal, works at the same college as a peon. A below average student she mustered up just 40 per cent marks to enter Satyavati College.She lives with her uncle Ranbir Singh at 1137, Upper Bela Road in Old Delhi. Said a neighbor: "He used to pick her up in a lambi gaadi (long car) at all odd hours of the night. One toot of the horn and she would be out of the house". She has failed to turn up at her college since July. Her fellow students were told she had met with an accident. Her new living style was explained away by saying that she had "a job in the Home Ministry."Om Pal SinghOm Pal Singh:28, quit a lecturer's job at an Inter College in Meerut District during the Emergency. He became a full-time worker for the Bharatiya Lok Dal and was jailed for staging a satyagraha. After four months in jail, he was released only to be held again, first under the Defence of India Rules and later the Maintenance of Internal Security Act.He organized Charan Singh's Birthday Rally last December and took a leading role in the formation of the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sammelan. He became its "office-in-charge". His colleagues deny that he was ever a personal assistant to Charan Singh. Om Pal Singh is a bachelor.K.C. TyagiK.C. Tyagi,28, is a lawyer. As General Secretary of the Yuva Janata, he recently attended the International Youth Festival at Cuba. He had once been employed with the embassy of a socialist country. He comes from Ghaziabad and during the Emergency he went underground and edited a clandestine newspaper. He had been active in the Samajwadi Yuvajan Sabha and the Yuva BLD before coming to the Yuva Janata. He is a married man with two children.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Apr 3, 2014 07:18 IST--- ENDS ---

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'Abduction' of Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram's son and his girl friend rocks the nation

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