Hassan: Videos mocking ‘mass sexual assault’ allegedly perpetrated by Karnataka’s Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna have gone viral on social media in Karnataka, with some garnering more than 8 lakh views. Raising concerns that the videos reinforce rape stigma and survivors’ trauma, youth and farmer organisations have lodged a police complaint demanding the immediate removal of the videos.
Prajwal Revanna, H.D. Deve Gowda’s grandson, has so far been booked in two sexual assault cases since pen drives containing videos of him with different women surfaced in Hassan, while Prajwal’s father, H.D. Revanna, is in police custody in a kidnapping case. While investigators have urged more women to come forward with complaints against the family, the videos making fun of the ‘mass sexual assault’ have gained traction in Karnataka.
In one of the viral videos, a man approaches his visibly upset friend and asks him why he is troubled. The friend says he is sad over his marriage ending since “his wife is from Hassan”, and the two go on to laugh off the incident.
In their police complaint, the Democratic Youth Federation of India, Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha (farmer union) and Student Federation of India have not only demanded the videos’ removal but also action against the content creators involved and a state police directive against spreading the videos.
“The videos are trivialising a crime like sexual abuse and assault into mere comedy,” read the complaint lodged at the office of the Hassan Superintendent of Police. “It (the videos) destroys the health of the society. Not only the woman complainants are taken lightly because of such mockery but it threatens the dignity of all women of Hassan district,” added the complaint.
According to the complainants, memes on such a tragic incident would cause psychological stress on the sexual assault survivors, as well as their families, and discourage others from coming forward and testifying in front of investigators.
“We have filed a complaint on the basis of three videos that have gathered lakhs of views, but many more are floating around. The spread of such videos needs to be stopped immediately,” said H.R. Naveen Kumar, district president of Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha.
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‘Will have negative impact on health of society’
Since the ‘mass sexual assault’ came to the fore, meme videos trivialising the crime and reflecting voyeuristic tendencies have started doing the rounds on social media.
In a video posted by a page masquerading as a news channel on Facebook, two friends bolt their door and put a pen drive in a computer but get upset after finding out that the pen drive does not have the sexual assault videos and has only troll content and Kannada meme videos. “We’ll go to Hassan ourselves and look for the pen drive,” the two men decide. This video has garnered seven lakh views.
In another video, a self-proclaimed “tech bro” says if the videos were online, “we could have enjoyed it”. In comments under the video, some people laugh, others call people from Hassan “cheap”, while Hassan residents express dismay and distress. “Earlier, if people thought of our Hassan, they thought of good things and memories. Now, it is such that the minute you say, Hassan, people think pen drives,” an FB user posted.
The memes have left many Hassan residents perplexed and infuriated. “Making these kinds of memes and videos about Hassan’s inhuman, brutal sexual abuse case is inexcusable. These have a very negative impact on the health of the society. The SIT should immediately find and punish the perpetrators of such heinous acts. And, strict action should be taken to prevent such a case from happening again,” author and activist Roopa Hassan told ThePrint.
Women have been reluctant to come forward and lodge complaints against the Revanna family because of the stigma around sexual assault. Moreover, Hassan district, including the Holenarsipura town, is a stranglehold of the Revanna family, with them occupying many positions of power.
Three FIRs have been registered against the family so far. A JD(S) zila panchayat member has accused Prajwal Revanna of repeated rape, and a former cook of the Revanna household has alleged that Prajwal and his father, H.D. Revanna, molested her.
There’s a third case, in which H.D. Revanna has been accused of kidnapping a woman. On Saturday, he was arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) from H.D. Deve Gowda’s house and sent to five days of police custody.
Prajwal Revanna is at large and has reportedly travelled from Germany to Dubai.
The SIT has started a helpline for women who have complaints against the family. Moreover, the Karnataka government has announced monetary compensation for the sexual abuse survivors.
With inputs from Sharan Poovanna
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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