Bengaluru: The Bengaluru police have registered a case against former Karnataka chief minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader B.S. Yediyurappa for alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl.
The 81-year-old leader was booked under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act after a woman lodged a complaint at the city’s Sadashivanagar police station Thursday night, accusing Yediyurappa of sexually assaulting her daughter at his residence on 2 February.
“After examining the details, the police have registered a case. Until the investigation is complete, I cannot comment on it,” G. Parameshwara, Karnataka’s home minister, told the media. He added that the case was very sensitive as it pertained to a former CM and charges under the POCSO Act.
A video, taken by the 17-year-old girl and her mother, purportedly shows the duo confronting the former CM at his Dollars Colony home in Bengaluru, and is circulating on social media.
ThePrint could not independently verify the authenticity of the video, however, Yediyurappa has not overtly denied its existence.
Speaking to reporters Friday, he refuted the charges against him and termed the woman as “not proper”.
In the seven-minute video, the woman is heard confronting Yediyurappa. “Appaji, what did you do? What did you do after taking her inside (the room)?” the girl’s mother asks the former CM.
“What did I do?” Yediyurappa asks.
“You took her in (to the room) and put your hand inside her blouse,” says the woman.
“She is like my granddaughter,” he says.
The woman keeps asking why Yediyurappa did what he did and the former CM gestures her to sit, holds her hand, and responds: “She is a good girl. Bring her up well and I will help in any way possible.”
Alok Mohan, Karnataka Director General of Police, issued an order Friday for the case to be transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department.
Yediyurappa has been booked under Section 354A (unwelcome and explicit sexual behaviour) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 8 (punishment for sexual assault) of the POCSO Act. Both are cognisable and non-bailable offences.
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‘Repeatedly exploited’
In the video, the woman states that her daughter has been repeatedly exploited and that she has had to depend on lawyers to get justice.
She demands the formation of an SIT (special investigation team), with a retired judge like N. Santosh Hegde, to probe the case and says she would present evidence for her charges, including 54,000 call records.
She goes on to say that police officials, lawyers and government officials have troubled the family and even alleges that her life has been threatened.
The woman refers to Yediyurappa in the video as “Appaji” (an endearing term in Kannada) while he holds her hand seated next to her.
Speaking to the media, Yediyurappa referred to the girl’s mother. “Once when she was crying, I called her inside my house and spoke to police commissioner B. Dayananda, that some injustice had happened to her. However, when she started speaking against me in front of me, I concluded that this woman is not proper,” he said.
The former Karnataka CM said that after the woman met the police commissioner, she filed a case against him (Yediyurappa).
He added that he would seek legal recourse and lamented that he was only trying to help the woman but ended up with accusations himself.
Soon after the case was filed Thursday night, a list of the other cases the woman had filed against various officials went viral on social media.
According to police officials, the girl’s mother has filed over 50 cases against several senior police officials, including two former Bengaluru police commissioners, Alok Kumar and Bhaskar Rao.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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