Vikas Barala’s supporters target media, give counter-narrative

After the supporters of Vikas Barala, prime accused in the stalking case, launched a social media campaign to get ‘justice’ for him, the people have commented on how the media have already pronounced him guilty and the opposition is making capital out of the case.

 A Facebook page -- Justice for Vikas Barala -- has come up in support of Haryana BJP chief’s son claiming that he is falsely implicated in the case. Four days after being let-off on bail, Barala and his friend Ashish Kumar were sent to two-day police custody and will be produced in the court on Saturday now.

A post on the FB page reads, “Holding him guilty before the completion of investigation is not justified... Both are being held guilty in media trial and opposition parties are  making a political capital out of the issue.” Another post asked whether the media was above the judiciary as it had already pronounced the judgement in the case. “There is no need of a court in this case as media have already pronounced the judgement. Now media should also sentence him,” the post said.   

This FB page also shared videos and photographs of news articles talking of the issue, among other things, along with slogans to ensure Vikas gets justice.

‘Varnika hit their car first’

Meanwhile, the supporters have also tried to make a case of ‘road rage’ of this incident. One of the post also claimed Vikas and Ashish followed victim's car as Kundu had hit their car earlier.

The Facebook post says the accused first followed Kundu's car to find out who was in the car. The post hinted accused Vikas Barala and Ashish did follow the car of the victim but for other reasons. According to the post Varnika Kundu’s car had touched Barala’s car in a market. She allegedly drove the car from the spot which prompted Vikas and Ashish to chase her.

Another post even talked of how now the matter had reached court, it was a personal matter between the complainant and the accused and should be left at that, along with a picture of a group of people protesting.

Even friends came out in Barala’s support, claiming that he was a ‘decent guy’ and ‘personally known’ to those posting these comments. “He is not liable to commit offence like abduction, Haryana and Punjab should take a stand for him,” a person claiming to be a local advocate, posted on Friday afternoon. The page that was created on Wednesday, already had 2, 052 followers till the filing of this report.

Meanwhile, despite HT sending multiple messages to the creators of the page via messenger, there was no response from the other side. No contact details have been shared on the page either. Few people even took to Twitter to promote this campaign by pasting link of the Facebook page.

Earlier, in a Facebook post (now deleted), Kuldeep Barala, a member of the family, shared a photo of the victim with two men and implied that she was drunk at the time of the incident. In another post, Kuldeep Barala shared a photo of Varnika Kundu with alcohol glasses, in an attempt to character assassinate her, and claimed that the incident was  being blown out of proportion by the opposition to malign the BJP leader’s image.