JD-S leader and the BJP-led NDA’s Hassan Lok Sabha seat candidate Prajwal Revan-na was on Friday sent to police custody until June 6 after his arrest upon his return to India in connection with sexual abuse allegations against him. Mr. Revanna was taken into custody by the specially constituted SIT team shortly after his arrival today at Bengaluru airport on a flight from Munich.
The Hassan lawmaker’s lawyers will be allowed to meet him every day between 9.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m., a Bengaluru court said on Friday.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case had sought 15-day custody of Mr. Revanna in the first of three sexual assault cases filed against the JD-SMP. Prior to his arrest, Prajwal Revanna had moved to a local court for anticipatory bail in a case of kidnapping of a rape victim.
There was a posse of women police personnel led by women IPS officers waiting to execute the arrest warrant against the suspended JD-S MP after he alighted from the plane from Munich.
Mr. Revanna was then taken in a jeep, accompanied by only women police, to the CID office. A SIT source said that it was a conscious call to send only women off to arrest Prajwal, sending home a message that the 33-year-old leader had exploited his power as an MP with women.
The airport security handed over Mr. Revanna to the SIT, after which he was taken to the CID office in Bengaluru. Mr. Revanna is facing allegations of sexual assault and criminal intimidation by a woman who used to work at his residence. Earlier in the month, his father, HD Revanna was arrested on sexual assault and kidnapping charges in a case linked to the Hassan MP. Earlier in the day, Mr. Revanna’s medical tests were conducted at the city’s Bowring Hospital. His mother, Bhavani Revanna, will be questioned by the SIT on Saturday. The grandson of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda is wanted in sex abuse cases after several of his purportedly obscene videos began circulating widely.
Suspended Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S) MP Prajwal Revanna was arrested by SIT at the Bengaluru Airport after he landed on Friday.