Prajwal Revanna leaves country as CM orders SIT probe into sex abuse allegations

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has announced that a Special Investigative Team (SIT) will investigate complaints about alleged sex abuse against Prajwal Revanna, who is JDS chief HD Deve Gowda’s grandson. He is a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate seeking re-election to the Hassan Lok Sabha seat. According to sources, Prajwal has fled the country to Germany.

The Chief Minister’s decision came late on Saturday, April 27, two days after Nagalakshmi Choudhary, chairperson of the State Women's Commission wrote to the CM and the state police chief regarding the allegations against Prajwal.

According to the Karnataka Mahila Dourjanya Virodhi Vedike, which filed a complaint with the women’s commission, visuals of the influential politician sexually abusing women and coercing them into having sex were being circulated across Hassan district through pen drives and were also circulating on social media. The videos allegedly show Prajwal Revanna with numerous women.

“This incident has pushed numerous women’s lives into danger, and damaged their dignity,” the Vedike had said in its complaint to the women’s commission. 

The incident has now turned into a controversy with Congress leaders demanding answers from the JDS and BJP which are contesting the Lo Sabha polls in alliance. Voting for seats that the JDS is contesting concluded on April 26. 

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar demanded that the leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and JD(S) issue a clarification as the allegations were against the grandson of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda. “The Prime minister, BY Vijayendra, Shobakka, Ashok, Kumaranna, and Ashwath Narayan must answer to the people.”

Last year, Prajwal Revanna filed a case against a man named Naveen Gowda, alleging that the visuals had been morphed to show him, and also obtained an ex-parte injunction from the Principal City Civil and Sessions Court against 89 media houses preventing them from publishing any “defamatory” content him. 

Courts in Bengaluru have been trigger-happy in granting ex-parte injunctions against media houses. Many of those who seek injunctions are politicians.