Court extends the Police Custody of Aruna Chaddha in Geetika Sharma Case

Geetika SharmaA Delhi court on Saturday extended by a day the police custody of the now-defunct MDLR Airlines’ official Aruna Chaddha in a case related to the suicide of former flight attendant Geetika Sharma here Aug 5.

Duty Magistrate Manish Khurana extended the time for custodial interrogation of Chaddha till Sunday after police said her custody was required for recovering documents from her office.

Counsel B.S. Rana appeared for Chaddha, who was arrested Wednesday, and opposed the police plea. Chaddha was Thursday sent to two days’ police custody.

Geetika left a suicide note blaming Chaddha for her extreme step. Geetika also named her ex-employer and Haryana’s former minister Gopal Goyal Kanda in the suicide note, police said.

Charges of criminal intimidation have been slapped on Kanda, who was denied anticipatory bail by another Delhi court Thursday. He is yet to appear before investigators for questioning.

Geetika’s body was found hanging in her house in north Delhi’s Ashok Vihar. Her autopsy report confirmed there was no foul play and that she died due to hanging.

Kanda owned the MDLR Airlines where Geetika worked as a flight attendant. After the airlines ceased to function in 2009, she was given a job in another company owned by Kanda. She later quit the company.

According to Geetika’s brother, Gaurav, his sister was being constantly mentally harassed by Kanda and Chaddha.

A close relative of former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda was detained Saturday here in the case of suicide of a former flight attendant and Kanda’s employee in the national capital Aug 5, Delhi Police said.

Over a dozen investigators, led by Inspector Pankaj Malik, Saturday afternoon raided Kanda’s house in the Civil Lines here and searched it for more than an hour.

“We detained an 18-year-old man who was present there,” a police official said, describing him as a close family member of Kanda.

Malik said: “We are looking for Gopal Kanda but he is not there.”

The police team also recorded statements of family members of Kanda present in the house. Kanda’s office building here was also searched.