Former Minister Hartalu Halappa, who has been accused of sexual misconduct, was arrested by officials of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the office of the Superintendent of Police here on Sunday.
Mr. Halappa, whose whereabouts were not known for the past one week, was arrested when he appeared before the CID team around 2.30 p.m. Then, the CID team, headed by Superintendent of Police Yogappa and Deputy Superintendent of Police Renuka Sukumaran, interrogated Mr. Halappa for more than four hours at the office of the Superintendent of Police.
The premises where the office of the Superintendent of Police is located turned into a fortress as the police had tightened security. The entry gates were closed till the interrogation was completed.
After the interrogation, Mr. Halappa was taken to the McGann Hospital around 7.30 p.m. for a preliminary medical check-up. The check-up lasted more than an hour.
Thereafter, Mr. Halappa was produced before the Judicial Magistrate First Class II Srinivas Gowda around 9 p.m. at his residence at Rajendra Nagar in the city.
Mr. Halappa was remanded in judicial custody for a day. He will be produced in open court on Monday. A complaint of sexual misconduct was lodged against Mr. Halappa on May 3 by a woman.
Then, the CID served a notice on him asking him to appear before it by May 10. Based on this notice, Mr. Halappa appeared before the CID on Sunday.
‘Not unexpected'
Bangalore Special Correspondent reports: The arrest of Mr. Halappa was not unexpected for the party organisation, according to sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
‘Arrest certain'
A senior party functionary told The Hindu that going by the nature of the complaint filed against Mr. Halappa, it was certain that the accused would be arrested.
In fact, it was for this reason that the party leaders made him quit as Minister as soon as reports in this regard were published in the media, he noted. He said the BJP was now waiting for the outcome of the CID probe against Mr. Halappa to decide its future course of action as well as response with respect to Mr. Halappa, and added: “let the law take its own course.”
