Haasan: On a typical muggy April night, an old acquaintance of the 55-year-old woman showed up on a motorcycle with the message that ‘Bhavani (Revanna) akka’ had summoned her. She packed up to leave immediately.
After all, if the Revanna family calls, ‘one must go’.
Her son says he drove her for about a km to the nearest nukkad in a small village of Mysuru district, where she sat on a Hero Honda Splendor and was whisked away to Saligrama, Bhavani’s ancestral village. This was 29 April. He hasn’t heard from her since.
The son alleges she was raped by Prajwal Revanna, who is accused of sexually abusing hundreds of women. Allegations against him came to light when pen drives carrying obscene videos of the Janata Dal (Secular) MP were mass distributed in Hassan on the eve of polling day.
The woman’s family also claims ‘they (Revannas) took her because she could testify against them’.
Lying in a small shanty in the village, the son burns up with the guilt of not being able to stop her that day. He is surrounded by family, but a deafening silence fills the room.
They don’t even know if she is alive. All they can now do is wait.
The son has registered an FIR at K.R. Nagara police station, alleging that Prajwal’s father H.D. Revanna and Revanna’s associate Satish Babanna kidnapped her.
BJP leader G. Devarajegowda claims he tried for at least a year to bring the issue to the attention of senior leaders but failed. In the last week of April, pen drives containing videos of women stripping and being sexually assaulted were found at railway stations and bus stands across Hassan. Some purportedly featured Prajwal, son of JD(S) leader H.D. Revanna and grandson of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda.
The woman’s family says she worked on Revanna’s farm in a place referred to as Gannikheda in Hassan district three years ago, along with her husband and sister. They claim she is the woman seen in one of the videos, begging and pleading Prajwal not to rape her. “Beda Anna, bittbidi, (don’t brother, please spare me),” she is heard saying.
According to the complaint, the son was told by his friends that in the video his “mother’s legs were tied with rope and Prajwal Anna was raping her”.
After the obscene videos came to light, the son attempted suicide by jumping into the nearby Cauvery river but was rescued just in time by relatives. The trauma is too grave for a family that could never have imagined that they would be caught in such a whirlwind.
A policeman now sits in front of their house, peering at neighbours who pass by with nothing to offer other than a sympathetic face. Activists in Hassan fear more women or entire families could take extreme steps since the stigma attached with being involved in a scandal of this sort would make it difficult for them to survive in their communities.
As for the woman’s family, their home is chock-full of relatives, including her children’s spouses and grandchildren — all waiting for her to return.
Her husband doesn’t say much, staring blankly into space.
“They probably thought what can these poor people do to us, and took her away… all of this pains me right here,” says her brother, beating his chest.
So far, women seen in the obscene videos have been reluctant to come forward and lodge complaints. A fear-psychosis has gripped the town of Holenarsipura and surrounding areas. The Deve Gowda dynasty, of which Prajwal is one of the scions, has been in power here for close to half-a-century. This is perhaps why people here fear their lives would be endangered if they speak out against the dynasty.
Locals allege that such was the extent of alleged sexual abuse in this town that families would often not bring young women to weddings, fearing that they would be ‘liked’ by members of the Revanna family, who would seek the young women’s details and later call them home. Near everyone talked only in hushed tones about the Revanna family, if at all.
Despite that, townspeople say the sheer number of obscene videos came as a rude shock even for them. Against this backdrop, the woman’s family narrated their ordeal to ThePrint.
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‘We were told lies’
They say she had left years of abuse behind.
Without telling anyone why, one day three years ago she decided, somewhat abruptly, to not work at the Revanna farm in Hassan anymore and instead started to earn a living as a daily wage labourer. But as fate would have it, three years later, the Revanna family called for her again, and her family says she simply couldn’t refuse.
Her brother says a few days before polling was held in Hassan, where Prajwal is on the ballot, she was summoned to Revanna’s house. She returned on 26 April (polling day).
According to him, Revanna’s associate Babanna apparently told her and the son that she had been caught on CCTV camera ‘casting a bogus vote’ and faced jail time. They were told not to say anything if the police came knocking, says the brother.
Babannna came to the house again on 29 April, this time to take her to Saligrama, the brother tells ThePrint, adding that the next day, their sister — who happened to be working at Saligrama — spotted the woman there and enquired about why she was at the Revanna house. The sister was abused and told to mind her own business, claims the family.
The sister says she later spotted Babanna taking the woman to another location from Saligrama. The family doesn’t know where she was taken next.
After 29 April, the son called Babanna asking for her whereabouts but he was again ‘told lies’, a family member alleges. “Babanna told us that an old case had opened up, in which she is seen carrying a stick alongside Revanna. The police have taken her in custody, and that the son should also go underground and not tell anyone,” claims her son-in-law.
Within a day of this phone call, the obscene videos came to light, prompting family and friends to reach her family, asking after her.
The family says that’s when they realised that she had been ‘kidnapped’.
They then approached the Mysuru Superintendent of Police (SP) with the help of local community leaders and were directed to the SIT and an FIR was lodged. Babanna is currently in police custody, while Prajwal is in Germany and his father H.D. Revanna has sought pre-arrest bail in the kidnapping case involving the 55-year-old woman from Mysuru. Both are yet to appear before the SIT. While calls to H.D. Revanna went unanswered, a member of the SIT refused to comment.
Then, there is the woman’s family, who haven’t slept a wink since she went missing. They sit in a two-room house, with only a table fan for any respite from the scorching heat. A family of carpenters, they have not been able to land any work these past few days. “Not working a single day means going to sleep on an empty stomach,” says the brother.
The family feels cheated by those they idolised for years.
“She kept begging to be let off but that man didn’t spare her. If she had gone on her own accord, if she had gone there for money, we wouldn’t have had a problem at all, but here she’s folding her hands and saying Beda Anna (don’t Anna) and he isn’t stopping,” the brother adds, the agony visible in his eyes as they turn red with anger.
‘Were proud our family works for Revannas’
The woman, her husband and sister, worked full time at the Revanna family’s farm houses in Gannikheda and Kamanahalli in Hassan district. The couple was paid a paltry sum of Rs 5,000 each a month for their labour. According to the family, they would drive tractors and look after cattle, working alongside migrant labourers from West Bengal and Bihar. The woman would also be tasked with household chores like cleaning, mopping and laundry.
“We were very proud that our family works there. We used to think Revanna would hear us if we were in any trouble,” says the brother.
But as one delves deeper, a clearer picture of their terms of employment begins to surface.
“We couldn’t stand where they stood. We would be invited for extra help during functions and that’s all,” says the sister.
There were no holidays for the labourers. They worked in the farm from dawn to dusk but could not refuse any other work piled on them. Even bereavement leaves weren’t granted easily. “If there was a death in the family, they were told ‘what can you do now; the person has already died, it’s not like you can resurrect them’,” says the son-in-law.
Family members, who are from a backward caste, were also never allowed near the house. We were scolded if we went near the house and they would scream at the woman asking why we had come there, alleges the family.
The woman’s sister and husband maintain they had no clue that something terrible had happened to her. “Even if she looked distant on some days, she would snap right back with a smile. Six years ago, she joined work saying that she will do any amount of hard labour to fend for her family but left three years ago. She never told us why but told her employers that her daughter was pregnant and she needed to be there,” recalls her brother.
After the alleged kidnapping, the woman’s sister was also summoned by Bhavani Revanna to her ancestral village, since her brother had died about a week after polling day in Hassan. The sister was asked to help out during the funeral. The family says her presence at Saligrama around this time is how they know that the woman was taken there and that Babanna was the one who brought her there and took her from there as well.
But soon after, the sister’s family brought her back on some other pretext without telling her about what they suspected had befallen her sister. “It takes a lot of courage to say no to the Revannas. But we don’t know what could happen to her,” her brother tells ThePrint.
“I won’t go back to work. If they have done this to her they might do this to us,” says the sister.
For now, one constable has been stationed outside the woman’s house and another outside her sister’s. They have been asked not to speak to anybody since a probe into the matter is underway. Though the family feel they’ve been stripped of their dignity, villagers, neighbours and community leaders have visited their house to offer support.
“Our (caste) leaders came and told us that we shouldn’t be fearful, and encouraged us for the fight ahead,” says the brother.
He adds, “Just because they’re rich, they cannot get away with everything. We won’t be bought off with money. We want justice to prevail.”
*The name of the 55-year-old woman has been withheld for her safety.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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