Prajwal Revanna remanded in custody for sexual abuse until June 24

Bengaluru: After the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the sexual abuse cases against suspended Janata Dal(Secular) (JD(S)) leader Prajwal Revanna failed to seek further judicial remand, a Bengaluru court on Monday (June 10) remanded him in judicial custody till June 24. Live Law reported.

In the early hours of May 31, Prajwal was arrested by the Karnataka police as he arrived at Bengaluru airport from Munich. He had fled to Germany on April 26 using his diplomatic passport, shortly after thousands of videos of him sexually abusing women were leaked.

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The former Hassan MP was remanded in police custody until June 6, and the detention period was later extended until June 10.

On May 18, a special court issued an arrest warrant against Prajwal. So far, three FIRs have been filed against him in cases alleging sexual abuse.

In April, several videos surfaced documenting several cases of seemingly violent and non-consensual sexual acts by the suspended JD(S) leader. What was striking was that in most of the footage, it looked as if he had filmed women under duress and without their consent. On April 27, an SIT was set up by the Siddaramaiah-led government to investigate these cases. According to a Indian Times Police have reportedly not yet found the phone “used to take the picture.”

In the Hassan constituency, Prajwal was the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections and lost to Shreyas Patel of the Congress party by a margin of 43,588 votes.

Several reports suggest that the leadership of both the JD(S) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) knew about the allegations against Prajwal before he was re-nominated for the Hassan seat. He was suspended from the JD(S) on April 30.