October 04, 2024

Prajwal Revanna Abuse Videos: Identities Disclosed, The Victims Suffer Again

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-05-07 07:12:05

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

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The most important and disastrous fallout of the leaking of the videos of Prajwal Revanna's sexual offences has been the disclosure of the identities of the victims. In the case Nipun Saxena vs Union of India, the Supreme Court had ruled that the identities of victims of rape and sexual molestation/harassment cases must not be disclosed in any manner. This ruling was made to protect their dignity as the court recognized that instead of the perpetrator, society chose to stigmatize the victim. But in the instant case, the video clips have been made available to all and sundry through their targeted distribution in pen drives (containing the offending videos) that were handed out to random persons in public places in Hassan. Thereafter, these videos went viral on social media. The identity of the women in the videos was in public domain and they had to flee their homes to escape the unwanted glare from society and, possibly, retribution from the influential Deve Gowda clan. One woman was allegedly kidnapped and held captive in the farmhouse of an aide of Prajwal's father, JD(S) MLA H D Revanna, to prevent her from approaching the SIT. She was rescued by Karnataka Police and H D Revanna has already been arrested.

Without guessing who had distributed the pen drives containing the offending videos for what gain (which in times of election is easy to guess), it will suffice to say that they are equally guilty of demeaning women. The Congress is in power in Karnataka. It must do all it can to bring Prajwal Revanna to justice for his ghastly crimes and abuse of power. But it must also take steps to stop the circulation of the videos. For the women whose identities are being disclosed in these videos, the torture will continue for their entire life. Most of them are from lower middle class families and they will be uprooted from their homes. Their lives will not be the same ever again. If the Karnataka government had wanted, it could have taken immediate steps to stop the circulation of the videos on social media. In fact, it was bound by law to do so. It could have used Section 228A of the IPC and Sections 66E and 67A of the IT Act to proceed against the miscreants. But it failed miserably. In the political slugfest that ensued after the disclosures, most politicians chose to treat the matter as a law and order issue and forgot about the victims. The women in the videos are the ones who are suffering again now.