Court rejects bail plea of Red Cross Society secretary

Gurgaon: A city court on Friday rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Shyam Sundar, the organisational secretary of the Red Cross Society, in connection with a molestation case against him. On Thursday night, however, he was transferred to Panchkula from Gurgaon.
Last week, Sundar was booked by the Gurgaon police for allegedly molesting a 35-year-old woman staffer of the humanitarian organisation. And three days later, he was felicitated by Haryana’s governor Bandaru Dattatreya on Independence Day for stepping in to help people during the pandemic. Public prosecutor Jagbir Singh Sehrawat said the court had turned down the anticipatory bail application of Sundar “as serious allegations have been levelled against him”. “He is accused of sending objectionable messages to the woman and touching her inappropriately. The court has asked him to join the probe.”
In her complaint filed last week, the woman alleged that she had met Sunder at an event of another NGO, in Sohna on March 3, 2021. Sunder had allegedly shared his mobile phone number with the woman — a law graduate — and asked her to get in touch with him as “there’s a suitable vacancy for her in the NGO”.
The very next day, the woman met Sunder at the Red Cross office in Gurgaon and was offered the job of a councillor within two days. However, soon after she joined the Red Cross Society, Sunder started sending her “unsolicited messages of sexual nature”.
On another occasion, he had touched the woman inappropriately after calling her to his room on the pretext of asking her to make a video of a plasma donation event, as per the complaint.
Based on the woman’s complaint, an FIR was filed against Sunder under IPC sections 34 (common intention), 354 (assault with intent to outrage a woman’s modesty) 354-D (stalking) and 506 (criminal intimidation) at Women’s police station (west) on August 12.
IPC sections 34 and 506 have also been invoked against three women who had allegedly threatened her of dire consequences, along with Sundar, if she narrated her ordeal to anyone.