Prajwal Revanna’s driver and BJP leader trade charges over leaked videos
Bengaluru (PTI): Prajwal Revanna’s former car driver Karthik and BJP leader G Devaraje Gowda accused each other of leaking the alleged sleaze videos of the JD(S) Hassan MP which has caused a big embarrassment to the regional party.
Prajwal is the grandson of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and nephew of former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. JD(S) suspended him today over the row.
The Karnataka government constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) of IPS officers led by Additional Director General of Police B K Singh to probe the alleged sexual harassment of many women by Prajwal, who is said to be in Germany currently.
An FIR has already been registered against Prajwal as well as his father Revanna at the Holenarasipura police station in Hassan district for allegedly sexually harassing their former cook.
In a video message on social media, the driver said that he worked with Prajwal Revanna for the last 15 years but it has been a year since he has not been with him.
“The reason (for distancing from Prajwal) was that my land was taken away and my wife was beaten up. I was mentally tortured. Because my land was taken away, I came out of the job and started my fight (to get back land),” Karthik said in the message.
He said he had approached G Devaraje Gowda for justice as had been fighting against the Deve Gowda family.
Devaraje Gowda had fought the 2023 assembly election from Holenarasipura assembly constituency on the BJP ticket and lost to Revanna.
In the meantime, Prajwal Revanna had brought a stay order to prevent me from releasing any sleaze photos or videos, Karthik said.
“Devaraje Gowda told me to hand over the photos and videos which he promised to hand over to the judge to help vacate the stay. Trusting him, I gave him a copy, which he used,” the driver claimed.
“Other than Devaraje Gowda, I did not give this video to Congress leaders or anyone else. I did not give the videos and photos to Congress leaders because they were quite close to Prajwal. Hence, I approached Devaraje Gowda, but he too cheated me,” Karthik alleged.
Since the BJP and the JD(S) have forged an alliance, Karthik said Devaraje Gowda had written to his party high command not to give ticket to Prajwal pointing to his conduct.
Rejecting the charges, Devaraje Gowda told reporters here in Bengaluru that Karthik had been hanging around with the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Hassan constituency Shreyas Patel.
He said that neither the JD(S) nor the BJP would release the videos as it would go against the NDA alliance's candidate.
“If there was someone benefiting from this, it was Congress. Only for his political gain, the Congress candidate (Shreyas Patel) has mortgaged the modesty of women seen in the videos,” Devaraje Gowda said.
He said he is waiting for the SIT to serve him a notice where he will release important documents. The BJP leader said the Congress leaders will fall in the ditch they had dug for others.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
