Hassan: A 55-year-old woman from Mysuru, allegedly kidnapped on 29 April at the behest of former Karnataka minister H.D. Revanna, has escaped from where she was being held captive and is now with the special investigation team (SIT), ThePrint has learnt.
According to the family of the woman, she escaped in the wee hours of Saturday.
“She was being held on some farm near Hunsur. She somehow managed to escape, made her way through paddy fields and managed to get to a relative’s house from where she called us,” a family member told ThePrint.
Karnataka police and the SIT were on the lookout for this woman after her 20-year-old son filed a case against Janata Dal (Secular) MLA H.D. Revanna and his aide Satish Babanna, accusing them of having kidnapped his mother.
Revanna was taken into custody by the SIT from the residence of his father, former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, in Bengaluru Saturday.
This is one of the three formal complaints that have been filed in the scandal unravelling in Hassan, involving the son and grandson of the former prime minister.
By some estimates, there are over 3,000 obscene videos purportedly showing Revanna’s son Prajwal sexually assaulting multiple women were released through pen drives that were dropped off in public places a couple of days before Hassan went to the polls on 26 April.
ThePrint earlier spoke to the family of the woman from Mysuru who was missing since 9 pm on 29 April. The woman, the family claims, is still not aware of the scandal involving Prajwal or why she was held captive. One member of the family said she still thinks that she is in trouble for allegedly ‘casting a bogus vote which was captured on CCTV camera’.
“She thought the bogus vote issue was why she was being held captive and when she escaped and saw some policemen, she did not approach them for help. She thought they were also searching for her.”
According to the family, the woman called up another relative and finally established contact with her family around 2 pm Saturday. The family then reached out to the police who informed the SIT. The woman is currently with the SIT and was yet to meet her family or record her statement by the time of publication of this report.
Police sources, too, confirmed to ThePrint that the woman is now with the SIT.
Meanwhile, the SIT Saturday conducted a seven-hour spot inspection at the residence of the Revanna family in Holenarsipura in Hassan district. According to sources, the SIT was accompanied by a woman who was part of the domestic staff at the Revanna household and had filed a case in which she accused the father and son of criminal intimidation, sexual harassment and other serious charges. The SIT then took her to the official MP quarters in Hassan where further investigations will be carried out, said police sources.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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