Search on for four men in Revanna video case
On Thursday, a district court dismissed the anticipatory bail plea by the four accused, citing infringement of privacy and dignity of victims
The Hassan police intensified its search for the four accused of allegedly circulating the videos of sexual abuse featuring MP Prajwal Revanna, after a local court denied their request for anticipatory bail, a senior police official said on Thursday.
The official said that the four accused, identified as Chetan C (32), Naveen Gowda (34), Karthik N (40), and Puttaraju (50), are accused of disseminating USB drives containing explicit content, including images and videos purportedly implicating Prajwal Revanna in various sexual encounters. While Karthik is the former driver of the Prajwal, the Janata Dal (Secular) have alleged that the other accused are Congress workers. Karthik had allegedly obtained the contentious videos from devices owned by the MP during his tenure.
Earlier in the day, a district court had dismissed the anticipatory bail plea submitted by the four accused.
The court rejected the bail plea, citing infringement of privacy and dignity, along with embarrassment inflicted upon the victims. In its order, the court rejected the anticipatory bail plea of the four and noted that “the alleged act of morphing obscene images and videos of a candidate and distributing them to voters… can severely impact the reputation of individuals, specifically the women folk”.
The controversy revolves around Prajwal Revanna, who is accused of recording sexually explicit videos. Prajwal’s father, HD Revanna, has been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of a woman linked to the sexual abuse case.
The investigation is based on the complaint by Poornachandra Tejaswi MG, an election agent of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), stating that the alleged videos were fake.
In the complaint, he accused Naveen Gowda and three others of allegedly circulating manipulated videos and images intended to allegedly defame Revanna. “Naveen Gowda and others altered videos and images and circulated them to voters in the Hassan Lok Sabha segment using pen drives, CDs, and WhatsApp, aiming to tarnish Prajwal Revanna’s reputation and dissuade people from voting for him,” the FIR stated.
On Wednesday, former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy alleged that 25,000 USB drives featuring videos of women being sexually abused, allegedly by his nephew, were circulated across Karnataka ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
He had also launched a tirade against the Karnataka government asking why the police did not act on a complaint against those who released the videos. “It is now in public domain that Naveen Gowda on April 21 night at 8 pm announced releasing explicit videos on WhatsApp ‘in the next few seconds’. I want to ask home minister G Parameshwara - What is the role of SIT (Special Investigation Team)?” he asked while talking to reporters.
Alleged explicit videos of sexual abuse involving Prajwal -- Kumaraswamy’s nephew -- started making the rounds ahead of the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka on April 26.The chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Women Chairperson Nagalakshmi Chaudhary wrote to chief minister Siddaramaiah and state police chief Alok Mohan seeking a probe into the videos that are in circulation in Hassan, following which the Congress government formed the SIT on April 28 to investigate the case.