A video recording taken by the minor survivor is crucial evidence in the sexual assault case against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader BS Yediyurappa, according to the chargesheet filed by the Criminal Investigation Department or CID.
The 81-year-old former Karnataka Chief Minister stands accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl at his residence in Sanjaynagar, Bengaluru, on February 2. In the chargesheet filed with a Bengaluru court on June 27, the CID said that despite damage to the minor’s phone, forensic technology enabled the retrieval of a crucial video.
Read: POCSO case against BS Yediyurappa: Minor’s family breaks silence
According to the complaint, Yediyurappa allegedly assaulted the minor when she and her mother visited him seeking assistance with another sexual assault case from 2015, involving the girl and her cousin. Yediyurappa purportedly took the girl to a room under the guise of questioning her and assaulted her.
After leaving Yediyurappa’s residence, the girl recounted the incident to her mother at a coffee shop. They then returned to confront Yediyurappa at his house. The 17-year-old, who was aware of the demands for evidence during investigations into her earlier assault, recorded the confrontation with Yediyurappa.
The video, which surfaced on social media after the police registered the FIR, shows the girl’s mother saying, “Appaji, what did you do? What did you do to my daughter inside the room?” Yediyurappa is heard replying, “She is like my granddaughter. I have seven grandchildren, and she is like one of them. She is a smart child. Nanu nodi, check maadide (I saw and I checked).”
The mother, who is now deceased, continues in a distressed tone, “I have been fighting for the last nine years. I have 54,000 call records and all the other proof necessary. Form an SIT to investigate how everyone, including police, lawyers, and rowdies, have harassed me and my daughter.” The video concludes with Yediyurappa making a phone call, purportedly to Police Commissioner B Dayananda, saying, “I am sending a person to your office, please help her out. It’s a genuine case.”
Some days after the incident occurred, an aide of Yediyurappa took the mother and daughter to Yediyurappa’s house, where the copy of the video was deleted from the mother’s phone. However, they were unaware that the original video was still on the girl’s phone, which the police were able to recover now to build a case against Yediyurappa.
The girl’s mother died on May 26 at the Nano Hospital in Bengaluru of illness-related complications. After her death, her son, who is 25 years old, gave an extensive interview to TNM’s Editor-in-Chief Dhanya Rajendran, where he said he would continue to fight for his sister.
When there was little progress in the investigation of the case against Yediyurappa, he filed a writ petition before the Karnataka High Court demanding the BJP leader’s arrest.
Yediyurappa then approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail and a stay on the investigation and also sought quashing of the FIR against him. While the Court did not permit the CID to arrest Yediyurappa, it directed him to appear before the CID for investigation.
Read: ‘Not Tom, Dick or Harry to flee’: Karnataka HC prevents Yediyurappa’s arrest in POCSO case