She had spurned Kuldeep Vartak’s advances and did not invite him to her birthday party.The Youth Congress president of Vasai is in jail for threatening a girl with a toy gun on her birthday. He was upset that she had not only spurned his love but also left him out of her birthday celebrations.Kuldeep Vartak (28) had been friendly with a 21-year-old student from a Vasai college and, after many a chummy chat with her, concluded that she was in love with him. Although Vartak was smitten, the girl did not respond to his advances, and he reached the end of his patience when she did not invite him to her birthday party at her home on September 9.As the girl was seeing off her friends at around 1 am that night, a drunk Kuldeep, with his friends Roger Dias and Rupesh D’mello, swept up at her building in a car. Vartak whipped out a toy pistol and brandished it at the girl, threatening her for not reciprocating his love. Out of fear and embarrassment, the girl did not tell her family about what had happened. But the next day, her friends persuaded her to approach the police and register a complaint.Sometime later, Varkat having got wind of what had happened, tried to deflect the matter; he rushed to Vasai Gaon police station claiming he had received threatening calls. His friend Dias followed soon after, alleging that the girl’s parents had kidnapped him. The police soon punctured all their allegations and arrested Vartak and his two friends.“We examined the toy gun and found it is the kind used to shoot air balloons during fun fairs,” said PI Rajendra Mohite of Waliv police station in Vasai. Mohite said Vartak did not deny what he had done, but said he merely wanted to “surprise” the girl on her birthday. “I told him, `you are a responsible leader of the youth congress. How could you threaten her like this’. He was drunk at the time of the incident,” said Mohite.Vartak and his friends received bail from the Vasai court. However, the police rearrested them as part of their preventive drive to keep troublemakers at bay during the Ganesh festival. The three have been remanded to judicial custody till September 16 and are now in Thane Central jail. “During festivals, we see an increase in harassment of women, and we were apprehensive that Vartak and his friends might bother the girl again,” said Mohite.