JD-S leader and BJP-led NDA’s Hassan Lok Sabha seat candidate Prajwal Revanna was sent to police custody till June 6 in connection with sexual abuse allegations against him.

Revanna was taken into custody by the SIT team shortly after his arrival early today after he landed at Bengaluru airport from Munich.
The Hassan lawmaker’s lawyers will be allowed to meet him every day between 9.30 am to 10.30 am, a city court said on Friday.

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The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case had sought 15-day custody of Revanna in the first of three sexual assault cases filed against the JD-S MP.

Prior to his arrest, Prajwal had moved a local court for anticipatory bail in a case of kidnapping of a rape victim.

There was a posse of women police personnel led by women IPS officers waiting to execute the arrest warrant against the suspended JD(S) MP after he alighted from the plane from Munich.

Revanna was then taken in a jeep, accompanied by only women police, to the CID office. A SIT source said that it was a conscious call to send all women officers to arrest Prajwal, sending home a message that the 33-year leader had exploited his power as an MP with women.

The airport security handed over Revanna to the SIT, after which he was taken to the CID office in Bengaluru. Revanna is facing allegations of sexual assault and criminal intimidation by a woman who used to work in his residence. Earlier in the month, his father HD Revanna was arrested on sexual assault and kidnapping charges in a case linked to the Hassan MP.

Earlier in the day, Revanna’s medical tests were conducted at the city’s Bowring Hospital.
His mother Bhavani Revanna will be questioned by the SIT on Saturday.

The grandson of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda is wanted in sex abuse cases after a pen drive containing his purported obscene videos went viral. After videos and photos allegedly showing MP Revanna sexually abusing women circulated in Karnataka, and a woman filed a case against him, he fled to Germany.

The government on Thursday said it has initiated the process of cancelling the diplomatic passport of Revanna. At a media briefing here, Ministry of External affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the MEA received the request for cancelling Ravanna’s passport on May 21. On May 23, the MEA issued a show cause notice to Revanna in accordance with the Indian Passport Act, asking him why his passport should not be revoked. He has to respond to the show cause notice within ten days, the spokesperson added.
‘’We are waiting for his reply for further action in the matter,’’ he said.

The arrest of Revanna comes days after he announced in a video message that he would appear before the SIT on May 31 and fully cooperate in the investigation. This announcement came after his grandfather Deve Gowda wrote an open letter directed to people vilifying the family over Prajwal’s sex scandal and asked him to surrender.

Revanna, who is seeking a fresh term in the Lok Sabha from Hassan as an NDA candidate, left the country on April 27, a day after voting for the Lok Sabha elections in his constituency.