BJP MLA Munirathna, four others booked for gang-rape
The woman, claiming to be a BJP worker, filed a complaint at RMC Yard police station in northwestern Bengaluru and said the incident happened on June 11, 2023
A first information report (FIR) was registered against Karnataka BJP MLA Munirathna and four others on Wednesday after a 40-year-old woman accused the MLA of masterminding a gang-rape, injecting her with a deadly virus and urinating on her face, police officers familiar with the matter said.
The woman, claiming to be a BJP worker, filed a complaint at RMC Yard police station in northwestern Bengaluru and said the incident happened on June 11, 2023.
She said in her complaint that the MLA’s accomplices, Vasantha and Kamal, “misled” her into visiting Munirathna’s office in Mathikere, saying the MLA could “help her clear criminal cases” which she claimed were “falsely foisted on her at the MLA’s behest.”
The woman alleged that inside the office, Munirathna, Vasantha, Channakeshawa stripped her and threatened to kill her son if she resisted. “Munirathna then instructed the two men to rape me,” she said in the complaint, adding that the MLA urinated on her face during the ordeal.
An unidentified man later entered the office with a white box and handed it to Munirathna, the first information report (FIR) noted.
“He took a syringe from the box and injected me with an unknown substance. ,” she alleged. The MLA allegedly warned her that he would destroy her family if she spoke out about the assault.
The woman said she was hospitalised in January this year and diagnosed with an incurable virus, which she believes was a result of the injection administered during the alleged incident. After surviving a suicide attempt on May 19, she said that she decided to report the matter to police. “I had consumed pills, intending to end my life. But when I survived, I felt I needed to tell the truth,” she told police.
The MLA, his accomplices Vasantha, Channakeshawa, and Kamal, and an unknown person have been named in the FIR, police said.
“We have booked the accused under Indian Penal Code sections 376D (gang rape), 270 (act likely to spread infection), 323 (causing hurt), 354 (assault on a woman), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 509 (outraging modesty),” said a senior police officer probing the case.
The woman alleged that Munirathna had long harboured a grudge against her for her political involvement within the BJP. “He influenced others to file false complaints against me at Peenya and RMC Yard police stations,” she claimed.
As of Wednesday, no official response had been issued by the MLA regarding the latest allegations.
Munirathna, currently serving as Rajarajeshwari Nagar MLA, has previously been named in cases involving rape, blackmail, harassment, bribery, use of casteist language, and hate speech.
