The woman in the CD scandal involving former Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi on Monday appeared before a special court to record her statement before the magistrate regarding the kidnap case filed by her parents in Belagavi, which was later transferred to R.T. Nagar police station in Bengaluru.
Escorted by a team of policemen, the woman walked into the court, situated at Gurunanak Bhavan, and gave her statement. The magistrate recorded her statement for around one and a half hours, as per Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
This was the woman’s second deposition before the magistrate soon after she surfaced.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into the case had earlier questioned the woman about the R.T. Nagar case, but she had denied that she was kidnapped and maintained that she had gone to Goa on her own after the video was released.
Soon after her deposition, she was escorted to an undisclosed location.
The woman will not go to the SIT for the next few days as most of the officers are primary contacts of Mr. Jarkiholi, who has tested positive for COVID-19. She is also reportedly scared of appearing before any of the officers for fear of contracting the infection.
Earlier, advocate Jagadish Kumar, representing the woman, handed over a letter written by her to Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant and took an acknowledgement.
In the letter, she has accused the SIT of treating her as an accused in the entire episode. The same letter has been forwarded to the High Court of Karnataka. The advocate said that if the Commissioner did not take any action, the HC would take its course and the government would have to change the public prosecutor in the case as the victim was not contacted before their appointment. He also took exception to the Chief Minister openly saying that Mr. Jarkiholi would get a clean chit in the CD case.
Mr. Kumar also alleged that the entire episode of Mr. Jarkiholi testing positive for COVID-19 and getting hospitalised was a way to escape SIT questioning.
