New Delhi: Reports have emerged carrying details of a first information report against Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, alleging sexual harassment. This comes a day after the Karnataka government promised a probe into allegations of thousands of videos doing the rounds, showing Prajwal sexually harassing women.
Prajwal belongs to the Janata Dal (Secular) party which is in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party these polls. Hassan, his constituency, voted on Friday (April 26). He is alleged to be in France.
Several videos which record multiple instances of what appear to be non-consensual sexual acts have surfaced with respect to the Prajwal episode. In most of the videos, it is clear that women were recorded by him under what seem to be some form of duress and without their consent.
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah had said last evening his government decided to form a special investigation team to probe allegations on Prajwal’s involvement in videos appearing to show women being sexually harassed.
South First had reported that the case came to light when Prajwal’s polling agent filed a police complaint alleging that some morphed photos and videos of the JD(S) leader are being widely circulated in the district.
Dhanya Rajendran, who heads The News Minute, has posted on X noting that an answer to why Prajwal’s videos did not hit the news cycle before despite doing the rounds for month is that “he got a court gag order last year itself claiming videos may come.”
Chief minister Siddaramaiah has said the chairperson of the state commission for women wrote to the government urging that the matter be probed and that “thousands of women were blackmailed into indulging in a physical relationship with the politician.”
The latest FIR was filed against a complaint by a woman who worked at Revanna’s house. Prajwal’s father H.D. Revanna, the Holenarasipura MLA, is also named.
The complainant, reported Hindustan Times, told the police that she decided to come forward and name the father-son duo after watching videos of other victims narrating their ordeal.
She said that the household which had six women staff members used to be in a state of fear whenever Prajwal was home. She also added that he had misbehaved with her daughter over a video call.
Congress leader B.V. Srinivas has written on X that despite the gravity of the situation, “the PM [prime minister], HM [home minister], Smriti Irani [Minister of Women and Child Development], NCW [National Commission for Women], and Rekha Sharma [chairperson of National Commission for Women] have inexplicably remained silent on the matter.”
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that their silence is nothing short of a cover-up, given that Prajwal Revanna is a member of Modi Ka Pariwar [Modi’s family, a slogan used by BJP this election],” he added.
