File photo of H D Revanna (C) and his wife Bahavani Revanna (L).
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the charges of kidnapping against JD(S) MLA H D Revanna, his wife Bhavani Revanna and six others accused filed the chargesheet on July 29.
Well-placed sources confirmed to DH that Section 364A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was invoked against the accused. The chargesheet was filed before the 42nd Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM).
As per the section, whoever “kidnaps or abducts any person or keeps a person in detention after such kidnapping or abduction, and threatens to cause death or hurt to such person, or by his conduct gives rise to a reasonable apprehension that such person may be put to death or hurt, or causes hurt or death to such person to compel the Government or any foreign State or international inter-governmental organisation or any other person to do or abstain from doing any act or to pay a ransom, shall be punishable with death or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine”.
DH has learned that the SIT has collected several pieces of technical and circumstantial evidence, including call detail records (CDRs), and recorded statements to support the charges.
The case was first registered at the KR Nagar police station in Mysuru on May 2 by the 20-year-old son of a woman in her 60s, who was kidnapped at the behest of Revanna and Bhavani.
The probe was handed over to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which the Congress government in Karnataka formed to investigate the charges of repeated rape and sexual assault against Revanna’s son Prajwal, the then Hassan JD(S) MP.
The serial abuses came to the fore after obscene videos were circulated in Hassan days before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the state held on April 26.
During the probe, the SIT found that the abduction was orchestrated by Revanna and Bhavani to safeguard their son Prajwal and to "silence the survivor".
The abductee, who worked as a house help for Revanna for nearly six years, was on May 4 rescued by SIT officers from a farmhouse in Kalenahalli in Mysuru’s Hunsur taluk belonging to Revanna’s aide, Rajashekar.
She was taken away from her home first on April 22 by Satish Babanna, a co-accused in the case, was brought back and then taken away by the same accused again on April 29, a day after a sexual harassment case was registered in Hassan's Holenarasipura against Revanna and Prajwal. Babanna was subsequently arrested.
The SIT arrested Revanna on the evening of May 4 from the house of his father and former president HD Deve Gowda in Bengaluru. He was granted conditional bail later, while Bhavani, who was also under the lens of the SIT, was given conditional bail by the Karnataka High Court.