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A survivor of the alleged sex scandal involving suspended JDS Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna and his father HD Revanna has urged Karnataka politicians “not to politicise our hapless state.” “Please do not politicise our hapless state. Our lives have been ruined by these demons. But making it an election issue will not make you (politicians) any less a demon than our perpetrators,” said one of the survivors who lodged an FIR against Prajwal Revanna and his MLA father.
Not only are the victims terribly traumatised by the alleged sexual and mental abuse they had to endure over years, they said that they are now completely ‘broken’ after it became an election pitch across party lines. The Prajwal Revanna sex scandal has raised a political storm with the ruling Congress and BJP-JD(S) engaged in a political slugfest amidst the Lok Sabha polls.
The survivors who have come forward have been secured and closely guarded by the SIT investigating the case, but they speak of feeling trapped within themselves, rather than the four walls of their safe house.
“If we did not file an FIR, we would have been accused of taking money from a particular party. If we filed an FIR, we are still being accused of taking money from another party. All political parties are the same. Please do not demean our lives by making us a poster campaign especially during these elections,” begged the male member of the family of one of the four victims who have come forward to file an FIR.
Speaking over the phone, recounting her horror has been a Herculean task, but the survivor said that she wanted to expose the father-son duo and their “demonic acts.”
“We live in constant fear. It has taken a lot of courage and a lot for people persuading us that they will stand by us that made us come forward. We expect justice. We hope that that man (Prajwal) and his father are given a death sentence for what they have done to us,” said one of the survivors whose daughter was also allegedly threatened and sexually abused over video calls.
She recounted the horror of the incident which allegedly took place in 2020 when she was working at the Basavanagudi residence in Bengaluru, as Bhavani (Prajwal’s mother) had come to the city to shop which she does often.
“I was cleaning one of the rooms when suddenly he walked in latched the door and forced himself on me and raped me. He just said nothing will happen, while I pleaded to let me go,” the elderly survivor said. The lady said that she was so scared that she could hardly speak to her family and would make a quick call to check on them at around 1 or 2 am in sheer fear.
The daughter of the survivor added, “They used to feed her food that was kept in the fridge which was old. My mother did not even tell us what she was going through.”
The survivor’s daughter was also allegedly threatened, emotionally manipulated by claiming her father and mother will be harmed, forcing her to remove her clothes over video calls. It was not just Prajwal, she alleged, even HD Revanna had sexually harassed her mother at their Holenarsipura residence.
The women servants of the house would tremble at the thought of Prajwal being present at their Hassan residence, she claimed. In her statement to the SIT, she spoke of how the male servants of the house would safeguard them by asking them to come to do their household chores after Prajwal left the place. She also spoke of how she was verbally abused and called indecent names. She alleged that Revanna had sexually assaulted her on the pretext of giving her a fruit which he had given to others in the main hall of the house, but asked her to take it from him from a private room inside the house.
The survivor claimed that the Revanna family used their influence to obtain a government site in Holenarasipura in their favour in 2018. The survivor’s family, after selling their land in KR Nagara taluk, Mysuru district, built a house on the land, but in 2023, Bhavani sent the police to evict them and took over the house.
Forced out of their home, with no place to sleep but the steps that led to their house, losing one job after another the survivor claimed that the powerful political family would ensure they were sacked from every new job they took up to survive. “All we want is our house back,” she said.
“The owner of the small house we have rented after being thrown out of our home has told us to vacate immediately. He said our faces are all over the internet and WhatsApp and he does not want people like us on his premises. We can’t even step out, people talk about us in whispers in front of us,” said the survivor in a choked voice.
She claimed they (Revanna and Prajwal) have been misusing their power, influence and money to buy the silence of the victims or still physically assault families into submission.
Another survivor, whose video has been widely circulated, who had allegedly been subjected to sexual abuse over four years from 2019, said that she will only speak to the investigating agencies as they have no trust or hope otherwise.
“We have no face in society, we quietly endured it thinking it was our fate as we were poor and downtrodden. Now we have taken this fight to the courts. We have nothing with us, we are penniless, fraught with despair with just hope in our hearts and a prayer on our lips,” said the survivor’s family member whose detailed testimony has also been recorded by the SIT.
Many of the victims did not know they were being recorded on video until the clips began to be shared widely on social media platforms bringing the alleged sexual assaults to the fore.
The elderly survivor recalled how on April 24, two days before the polling day, their neighbour came to their home and showed them the video of a lady whose clips had become viral. “We got to know that there were videos only when the police showed it to us. We were horrified and numb. They took away everything from us, even our soul,” said the survivor and her daughter.
The son of another survivor, who managed to escape from the farmhouse she was allegedly kept captive in, said that the support they have been getting has given them courage.
In the FIR filed by the son of a former maid, he had alleged his mother was kidnapped by Satish Babanna, an aide of the former minister and the JDS MLA on April 29. Babanna had allegedly taken away his mother a few days before the Lok Sabha elections.
Babanna had allegedly dropped his mother back on April 26. “He told my parents not to tell anything to the police if they came to our house. He threatened us that we would be booked in a case and told us to alert him if the police came by.”
But Babanna returned on April 29 around 9 pm. “He told us that if my mother is caught by the police, a case would be registered and all of us will go to jail. He claimed that HD Revanna had told him to bring my mother to him. He forced my mother into accompanying him on his bike,” the complainant said.
The complainant got to know later that “a video had been circulating of his mother being raped by Prajwal Revanna. They told me that despite my mother pleading to be spared, Prajwal Revanna had raped her.”
“My mother was in absolute fear that people now know about the videos, but we were there to give her courage and others are supporting us. They (SIT) said, they will stand with us. They treat us well and said don’t hesitate or feel ashamed,” he said.
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