CID to probe Karnataka ex-minister for rape charges

BANGALORE - Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa Monday said the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) will probe the rape charges against Haratalu Halappa, who quit as food and civil supplies minister Sunday after media reports about the alleged incident.

“I have decided to order a CID inquiry. Let the truth come out,” Yeddyurappa told reporters here.

The opposition Congress asserted that only a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will bring out the truth and took out rallies at several places in the state.

Hundreds of Congress workers staged a sit-in at Mahatma Gandhi statue in Bangalore city centre demanding immediate arrest of Halappa, resignation of the Yeddyurappa ministry and handing over of the case to CBI.

Congress workers took out rallies at Mysore, Shimoga - where the alleged rape took place - Gulbarga in north Karnataka and other places in support of the party’s demand.

Dismissing the Congress demand, Yeddyurappa said the party was indulging in “politics of revenge”.

“What is it they want? Halappa has resigned. I have ordered a CID probe. Let the truth come out and the guilty will be punished,” said the chief minister, who has made Shimoga his political home.

Leader of opposition in the assembly Siddaramaiah criticised Yeddyurappa for “giving a clean chit” to Halappa and said: “How can the police act against Halappa?”.

Yeddyurappa, accepting Halappa’s resignation, said the allegations were a “conspriacy against Halappa and the government”. He termed Halappa a “satvik” (good or pure person).

After Yeddyurappa announced the CID probe, Home Minister V.S. Acharya said police would take action against Halappa as per law.

“We will not pre-empt, not prompt nor sidetrack the issue,” he told reporters.

Halappa resigned Sunday morning following a report in a leading Kannada daily about the sexual assault by “a minister close to Yeddyurappa” against his friend’s wife in Shimoga. The daily did not name him or mention when the incident took place.

Late Sunday, the woman, Chandravathy, 33, wife of Venkatesh Murthy of Shimoga, about 270 km from here, met the state police chief Ajay Kumar Singh, and gave a 12-page complaint detailing the incident that happened on the night of Nov 26, 2009.

A case was later registered at the High Grounds Police station in Bangalore’s central business district.

Murthy, a friend of Halappa and a financier, told reporters outside the DGP’s office late Sunday that he did not file the complaint at Shimoga as he was not sure the local police would have entertained it had the incident not been reported in the media and also because Halappa and Yeddyurappa hail from the same town.

Murthy said he decided to lodge the complaint now as Halappa and his henchmen have begun to threaten him that his two children will face consequences if clippings of the alleged incident captured by him on his cell phone were not destroyed.

Murthy released the clippings to several TV channels in Bangalore late Sunday. In one of the clippings Halappa is shown with Murthy’s wife behind him. In another, the wife is shown crying and telling her husband in Kannada “Halappa raped me”.