Siddaramaiah rules out CBI investigation in Prajwal case
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday rejected the Opposition BJP’s fresh demand to call in the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the allegations of sexual assault made against Hassan MP and JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna. Instead, he reiterated his faith in the State police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is handling the case.
Asking the BJP why it does not trust the State police, the Chief Minister accused the Opposition party of issuing “misleading” statements aimed at causing confusion in people’s minds about the SIT, which he said was conducting a “fair probe”.
“We are not interfering in the functioning of the police. We have belief and faith in our police,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
Noting that the BJP had once termed the Central agency the ‘Corruption Bureau of Investigation’, the Chief Minister pointed out that the party had never handed over a single case to the CBI while it was in power in the State.
Earlier in the day, BJP leaders — including former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Leader of the Opposition R. Ashok — made a fresh pitch for a CBI investigation, alleging that the SIT inquiry lacked proper direction. Claiming that the investigation was not impartial, they accused the SIT of arresting the complainants instead of the accused.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing alleged multiple instances of sexual abuse by Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna and all related cases, has, for the rst time, begun its investigation into the leak of the explicit clips.
The SIT arrested Likhith Gowda and Chetan from Hassan on Sunday morning for allegedly circulating obscene content. They are reportedly BJP workers and close associates of former Hassan BJP MLA and BJP State general secretary Preetham Gowda.
There were allegations that several followers of Mr. Preetham Gowda, owing to his dierences with the H.D. Revanna family, had not worked for the NDA candidate Prajwal Revanna. Mr. Preetham Gowda is yet to react to any of these allegations.
SIT o¤cials conducted mahazar at Mr. Chetan’s residence in Yalagunda in Hassan taluk and Mr. Likhith’s residence in Sharavanabelagola on Sunday following their arrest. The o¤cials recovered two pen drives and a Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a desktop computer that the accused had allegedly used to spread the obscene clips. Sources said the duo had conspired to destroy these digital devices to cover their tracks and were caught in the nick of time.
Their arrests are in connection with the FIR registered at Hassan CEN Police Station on April 23, a day after several pen drives with the explicit clips were found in and around Hassan town on April 22.
Poornachandra Tejaswi, an advocate and JD(S) party agent of Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, led a complaint with CEN Police in Hassan on April 23 against Naveen Gowda and others. He alleged that Mr. Naveen Gowda and others created morphed images of JD(S) candidate Prajwal Revanna and circulated them through pen drive, CD, WhatsApp in the constituency ahead of polling. Hassan went to polls on April 26.