H.D. Revanna | Photo Credit: file photo
Janata Dal (S) leader and former Minister H.D. Revanna and his son Prajwal Revanna, MP for Hassan, were booked for sexual harassment and criminal intimidation by the Holenarsipur Town Police on Sunday.
This FIR has now been referred to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), led by B. K. Singh, Additional Director-General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department, formed to probe the alleged sex scandal of Mr. Prajwal Revanna.
The SIT has been tasked with probing allegations of sexual abuse of many women by Mr. Prajwal Revanna, whose explicit videos have been doing the rounds.
Complaint by woman
The case was registered based on a complaint by a woman, a relative of Bhavani Revanna, Mr. Revanna’s wife, and who worked in the household for three-and-a-half years from 2019, when she suffered the alleged harassment.
The father-son duo has been booked under Sections of 354(A), 354(D), 509 for sexual harassment and section 506 for criminal intimidation, of the Indian Penal Code. Significantly, the FIR lists not only the complainant but others as well as victims in the case.
The complainant alleged that Mr. Revanna, the accused, whenever his wife was not at home, would touch the complainant inappropriately in the storeroom and harass her sexually.
Similarly, another accused, Mr. Prajwal Revanna, would misbehave with her when she was working in the kitchen. She claimed all the women house helps used to be scared of Mr. Prajwal Revanna, and male helpers also instructed the women working in the house to be careful with him.
The complainant also alleged that Mr. Prajwal Revanna would contact the complainant’s daughter through video call and speak to her indecently and that her daughter had to block his number. Finally, upset over the conduct of the two accused, she left the job, she said.
Significantly, the complainant said that she came across video clips being circulated on WhatsApp allegedly showing Mr. Prajwal Revanna in explicit videos with many women and she recognised one of them, who is reportedly being harassed by the accused, as a woman who was working at a farmhouse belonging to his family.
The complainant said after the video clips went viral, her husband had been suspecting her (the complainant’s) fidelity too, prompting her to speak out against the father-son duo to a media channel and later lodge a complaint with the police.
