A fortnight after the sex scandal rocked the political world in Karnataka, a man claiming to be the father of a woman allegedly sexually assaulted by the state minister has filed a police complaint alleging that his daughter is missing, according to local media.
The woman's father has said that his daughter was abducted on 2 March, the day video clips were aired on local TV channels. The video clips allegedly show the local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ramesh Jarkiholi in a compromising position with an unidentified woman.
“We are poor and not influential at all in any manner. But police must take steps to find where our daughter has been kept or if she is even alive,” the father wrote in his police complaint on 16 March.
A senior official in the Bengaluru police told Sputnik that a case has been registered on basis of the complaint under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including kidnapping and wrongful confinement.
This is the second complaint filed in the case as Karnataka minister Jarkiholi was forced to resign from his post after Dinesh Kalahalli, a social activist, had approached police with a CD containing compromising video clips and filed a complaint on behalf of the missing woman alleging that the minister sought sexual favours from her in exchange for a government job.
Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team of Karnataka Police has been investigating the case. The police told local media that efforts are underway to trace the missing woman.
On 13 March, Bengaluru police had also registered a case of conspiracy and blackmailing, among other charges, against unknown persons based on a complaint filed by Jarkiholi, who claims to be innocent in the case.
The former minister accused some unnamed people of hatching a conspiracy against him over the past three months to finish him off politically and for blackmailing him.
“There are many people involved in it. Among them, a few hatched the conspiracy, became part of preparing the fake CD, and released it to create political instability,” Jarkiholi had stated in his complaint.
