HD Revanna’s bail plea to be heard today
On Monday, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) responded to a Blue Notice issued by the state’s SIT against JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna
The court will hear the matter on Wednesday.
Explicit video clips allegedly involving the 33-year-old Prajwal, grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, had started making the rounds in pen drives in Hassan ahead of the polls, following which the Congress-led state government constituted the SIT to probe the sexual abuse allegations against the MP.
Preliminary investigations suggested that at least 2,976 explicit videos allegedly involving the Hassan MP were shot from a mobile phone at Revanna’s residence in Bengaluru and Hassan after 2019, officers have said.
While rape and molestation cases have been registered against Prajwal, his father and JD(S) MLA from Holenarasipur HD Revanna has been arrested and remanded to police custody for kidnapping a woman allegedly sexually assaulted by him.
HD Revanna and his associate Sathish Babanna were booked for the purported abduction of a woman on April 29, as per a complaint filed by the woman’s son.
On Monday, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) responded to a Blue Notice issued by the state’s SIT against JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna. In its response, Interpol said that all 196 member countries were alerted to identify and report if Prajwal is spotted at any port in their jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, the political row over the sexual harassment case continued as JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy accused chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar of distributing the USB drives before polls. At a press conference on Tuesday, he questioned the impartiality of the investigation, alleging bias within the SIT. He claimed the investigation was skewed, dubbing it the “Siddaramaiah Investigation Team” and the “Shivakumar Investigation Team.”
He said the USB drives were circulated by police officers who were “threatened to do it”.
“It (USB carrying videos) was released in Bengaluru Rural constituency (where the Congress candidate in the Lok Sabha elections is D Suresh, who is the brother of Shivakumar). This was on April 21. On April 22, Poornachandra, our polling agent, filed a complaint to the district deputy commissioner, who is the Returning Officer,” the JD(S) leader said.
“Poornachandra received a message at 8 pm on April 21 asking people to ‘follow a WhatsApp channel to see Prajwal Revanna’s sleaze video’. There was a message on this WhatsApp channel, ‘Countdown for the release of Prajwal’s sleaze videos’, he said.
Poornachandra named five people including Naveen Gowda, Karthik Gowda (Revanna’s driver), Chethan and Puttaraju alias Putty, he said, adding that they should be arrested first for “mortgaging the modesty” of the women in the videos.
He pointed to a letter from the State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary and said: “...Nagalakshmi Chowdhary did not mention the name of Prajwal or Revanna but the chief minister called it ‘Prajwal Revanna’s explicit videos’ in his post on ‘X’ when he announced the formation of SIT. This shows how the conspiracy was hatched,” he claimed.
HT could not get any response on the matter from Shivakumar nd Siddaramaiah’s offices.
With PTI inputs