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The Print
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Print
Gang rape, poll rigging, bid to inject rival with HIV—litany of charges against Karnataka BJP MLA Munirathna
The rowdy-sheeter in question was Munirathna, now the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Rajarajeshwarinagar, and the police officer, B.B. Ashok Kumar. 'He [Munirathna] then started getting more government contracts, became a city corporator, MLA and even a minister. But then these allegations started coming out,' Kumar told ThePrint. The prisoner did not try to escape and eventually secured the tender to build a road from Bengaluru city to Nandi Hills, a distance of roughly 50 km. This particular stretch was laid about two months before the second SAARC summit was to be held in Bengaluru in November 1986, when heads of states of six SAARC member nations took this road to reach a retreat in Nandi Hills, as planned by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Bengaluru: In mid-1986, a handcuffed rowdy-sheeter asked the police officer who arrested him for a favour: to be taken to the city corporation so he could deposit Rs 10,000 for a tender for a road construction project. Hoping this might be a step towards prisoner reform, the officer agreed to escort him to the BBMP head office in handcuffs. 'If you try to escape, you will be shot,' he warned the rowdy-sheeter, then in his early 20s. Last week, a 40-year-old woman accused Munirathna and four of his alleged aides of gang-raping her in 2023, urinating on her face, injecting her with a virus and threatening to kill her entire family if she were to disclose the treatment to anyone. In this case, they have been booked under IPC sections 376D (gang rape), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 354 (assault or criminal force against a woman), and 506 (criminal intimidation), among others. 'This is a case we have sent for the transfer of the SIT, because already an SIT has been established and a request has been made to transfer that case,' said a senior police officer who did not wish to be named. ThePrint reached Munirathna for comment but calls to him went unanswered. This report will be updated if and when a response is received. As of Sunday evening, the the four-time MLA had not been arrested in this case. Over the course of his political career, Munirathna has faced a host of other serious criminal charges—from rape, election rigging to trying to inject a political adversary with HIV-infected blood. He is out on bail in most cases. On his part, the former corporator has levelled serious accusations against political adversaries, particularly D.K. Suresh, the younger brother of Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar. On 25 December last year, during a programme to celebrate former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's birth anniversary, an egg was hurled at Munirathna. He had then claimed that it was an 'acid egg' and blamed the DK brothers for attempting to kill him. 'D.K. Suresh, D.K. Shivakumar and the defeated (MLA) candidate Kusuma and her father Hanumantharayappa, all of them…about a hundred people tried to kill me in a group,' he told reporters while sitting on a dharna at the spot where he claimed he was attacked. Also Read: Why Karnataka's new police chief is best known as 'one-way Saleem' Cases against Munirathna In September last year, Munirathna walked out of Bengaluru's Parappana Agrahara (central jail) where he had spent three days in connection with an SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act case for allegedly hurling casteist abuse against a former corporator. In a recording of a purported phone conversation between Munirathna and a contractor, the BJP MLA was heard using casteist slurs and threatening to 'finish off' the former corporator. But minutes after he stepped out of the central jail, he was arrested again; this time in a case in which a 40-year-old woman accused him and six others of rape, sexual harassment and culpable homicide. In her complaint, the woman alleged Munirathna raped her, filmed the act and used the video to blackmail her. According to the complaint, she was also forced to help Munirathna 'honeytrap' his political rivals. Investigators have filed a chargesheet in this case. The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the serious and recurring charges against the MLA, who was elected to the Assembly on a Congress ticket in 2013 and 2018. Police filed a 2,481-page chargesheet which accused Munirathna, along with a police inspector, of trying to inject then revenue minister and now Leader of the Opposition in Karnataka, R. Ashoka, with HIV-infected blood. 'This is an explosive situation. I am not sure if this is true or not and the police should probe this. But if this is the situation in politics, no leader can survive and no minister can carry out their duties. We meet thousands of people every day, accepting hundreds of garlands and bouquets. How do we trust anyone?' Ashoka had told Power TV at the time. Controversies involving Munirathna go back several years. On 1 June, 2010, a 17-year-old girl was killed when a wall at a veterinary college near Bengaluru's Mekri Circle collapsed on her as she was trying to shelter herself from the rain. Munirathna was then a newly-elected corporator from Yeshwanthpur and had overseen the construction of that wall. The issue was debated for days in the city council but he did not face any charges. Three years later, he successfully contested on a Congress ticket from Rajarajeshwarinagar seat. On the eve of the 2018 assembly polls, Munirathna was booked along with 13 others in connection with the recovery of nearly 10,000 fake voter ID cards from an apartment in Jalahalli. Police have filed a chargesheet and he is currently out on bail in this case. In 2019, Munirathna defected to BJP. He was among the 17 legislators who walked out of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance that led to the collapse of the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government. He was made junior minister for horticulture, as well as planning, programme monitoring and statistics in the B.S. Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP governments that followed. While he is now with BJP, Munirathna is still seen as being close to Siddaramaiah and has at times broken with the party line to praise the incumbent Congress government. According to B.B. Ashok Kumar, he is among the many rowdy-sheeters of Bengaluru who entered mainstream politics. Among other things, he is also a movie producer. In the early 1980s, Munirathna was a close aide of Kotwal Ramachandra, a notorious criminal who features in almost every story about Bengaluru's brief tryst with the underworld. Munirathna's brother, Korangu Krishna, too was a rowdy-sheeter. Kumar recalled that after Kotwal died, Munirathna spent many nights at the police station out of fear of being targeted by former boss's rivals. Munirathna's rise in politics also coincided with a surge in his declared wealth—from Rs 28 crore in 2013 to Rs 293 crore in 2023, according to affidavits submitted to the Election Commission. Given his sizable victory margins, Munirathna remains a force to reckon with. (Edited by Amrtansh Arora) Also Read: 'Won't be surprised if Prajwal is welcomed with garlands' — 1 yr on, victims still hiding
India Today
21-05-2025
- India Today
Urinated on face, injected virus: Woman accuses Karnataka BJP MLA of gangrape
Bengaluru police have registered an FIR against Karnataka BJP MLA Munirathna and his associates after a 40-year-old woman accused him of gangraping her, urinating on her face, and injecting her with a harmful complaint was lodged on May 21 at the RMC Yard police station, near Yeshwantpur, in northwestern woman, who identifies herself as a BJP worker, alleged that the assault took place on June 11, 2023, at Munirathna's office in Mathikere, about 4-5 km from Yeshwanthpur. She said she was taken there by his aides, who had promised help in quashing criminal cases that she claims were falsely foisted on her at the MLA's According to her, once inside the office, Munirathna and two associates stripped her, threatened to kill her son, and then ordered the men to rape her. During the incident, the MLA allegedly urinated on her face.A fourth unidentified man later entered the room and handed Munirathna a white box, from which he allegedly took a syringe and injected her with an unknown substance, the FIR woman also said that she was hospitalised in January this year and diagnosed with an incurable virus. She said she believes it was caused by the injection administered during the sexual assault. On May 19, after reportedly attempting suicide by consuming pills, she decided to approach the woman also claimed that Munirathna harboured a grudge against her for her involvement in BJP activities and had influenced others to file false complaints against her at Peenya and RMC Yard police FIR has been registered under IPC Sections 376D (gangrape), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 354 (outraging modesty of a woman), 504, 506, 509, and 34 (common intention). Three of Munirathna's associates have been named, while the fourth accused remains FIR against him is in addition to a corruption case to be filed against him after the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker granted official permission to proceed with the investigation of corruption charges against case, registered at Vyalikaval Police Station, in Malleshwaram area in north Bengaluru, alleges that the MLA demanded a bribe of Rs 36 lakh and accepted Rs 20 lakh, in connection with a contract. Filed under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, the preliminary inquiry reportedly established evidence of wrongdoing. The CID Director General had sought approval for further investigation, which has now been officially FIR is not the first rape case against Munirathna. In September 2024, another 40-year-old woman accused Munirathna of repeated rape between 2020 and 2022. She, too, had accused Munirathna of forcing her into criminal conspiracies, and honey-trapping politicians using HIV-infected FIR in connection to that case was registered on September 19, 2024, at Kaggalipura police station, with six others named. IN THIS STORY#Karnataka
Mail & Guardian
29-04-2025
- Health
- Mail & Guardian
How this Limpopo NGO prepared for Trump's funding cuts
Twenty years of hard lessons — with a dose of good luck and a lot of persistence — has helped Hlokomela Clinic to prepare for the US funding cuts crisis. (Zano Kunene) When Sindy Nkuna woke up to an email saying that the US had decided to 'I felt shattered,' she says. 'For days I had racing heartbeats thinking what's going to happen to me and to my kids. It was unbelievable. I have two boys.' Nkuna had been placed at the A data capturer, she tracked new cases of HIV, how many people were tested and how many were on treatment. The funding for her job — and six HIV testing counsellors, a site coordinator and part of their financial manager's salary — came through a grant from the Nkuna sat at home anxiously waiting to hear if she would still have a job. At the end of February, Overnight Hlokomela was left without their HIV testing team, which does fieldwork, and funding for equipment like cooler bags and transport costs for mobile testing clinics, all of which were paid for by Anova. HIV field services at the 50 sites across Hoedspruit farms and communities that helped test around 1 000 people for HIV every month were shuttered. 'It affected all of our HIV outreach … it was worse than Covid,' says Christine du Preez, who founded Hlokomela in 2005. The team had to figure out how to make it work for its remaining staff — and the 25 000 farmers, workers and their families that depend on them for basic health services. But Hlokomela was far better equipped to deal with the crisis than many other organisations that also lost their USAid funding. Here's why the plans they've made — and the lessons they learned in the past decade — are helping them get by. Use what you've got Problem: Hlokomela lost its field HIV testing team Solution: Community health workers get people to test at Hlokomela's clinic (facility staff weren't affected by funding cuts) and staff from other projects help with testing. Hlokomela has three clinics, with nine mobile clinics that work in 72 sites across fruit and game farms. With 106 staff members, it employs paid nurses, data capturers, lay counsellors, community health workers and doctors who volunteer twice a week for free. The Anova funding — which made up 2% of Hlokomela's overall budget — paid for the mobile testing clinics and the staff who ran them. In 2008, Du Preez says their latest data from this year shows that Hlokomela has helped the proportion of HIV-infected farmworkers to drop to 6.5%. But when their funding stopped, Hlokomela was caught by surprise. Since then, testing has dropped by nearly 90%, Nkuna says. Still, they made a plan. It's the community health workers — known as nompilos, 'mother of life' in isiZulu — they've leaned into. Hlokomela has trained about 75 of these farmworkers, who earn a monthly stipend, in health education as well as checking blood pressure and heart rates, and screening for chronic conditions such as HIV and TB. THE NOMPILOS: Nine of Hlokomela's nompilos and programme manager Antoinette Ngwenya outside Hlokomela Clinic. (Zano Kunene) Because Hlokomela's funding for clinic staff was still intact, they could continue to test people for HIV at facilities. But someone had to tell people about it — and explain how to get there. The nompilos went around farms identifying people who needed to get tested and encouraged them to go to Hlokomela's clinics. Hlokomela then also roped in seven volunteers, who were certified in HIV testing, from another of their projects to help with the now higher numbers of people who needed to get tested at their clinics. Moreover, the project came up with a short-term fix to stop the backlog to capture testing data from getting too high. Nkuna was the only person trained to use the government's HIV database. That's why Hlokomela temporarily transferred two employees from its sex worker programme to help with recording health tracking data, says Antoinette Ngwenya, a Hlokomela programme manager. 'The fact that we still have a clinic means that we can still do HIV testing. Because if we don't test, and get them on treatment, we could have a boom of HIV again,' says Du Preez. 'Hopefully we will get another plan. It looks like the Don't put all your eggs in one basket Problem: Getting all your money from one donor can make you close down overnight Solution: Diversify funding as far as possible — and as soon as possible. About a decade ago, Hlokomela learned a tough lesson: don't rely on a single donor; it poses a serious risk of an organisation collapsing when things go wrong with the funder. For 10 years, Hlokomela was mainly funded by the UN 'When we had IOM we could run many projects and have big events for campaigns. It was great,' says Ngwenya. But then IOM's funding to Hlokomela ended in 2016 and the organisation had to start raising other funds. 'We were worried we were going to close down. One of the challenges was realising there was funder fatigue, so we had to start thinking outside of the box,' Du Preez says. 'We found ways to make our own money, got our network of donors to help us find other funders and made an agreement with the provincial health department.' The Limpopo health department signed a three-year agreement to pay stipends for Hlokomela's then 41 nompilos. Eight years later, Hlokomela is Hlokomela also just registered as an NGO in the US, which Du Preez believes will make it easier to get US funding from philanthropic foundations based there. She's been working on the registration for 15 months. 'One day we spoke with our managers and I said we need to get money from America. We started with the application for an NGO in America called the Hlokomela Fund. I just got back from there to finalise it.' Right now, though, there are Share the cost Problem: Not enough funds for health services offered Solution: Employers co-pay for employees' clinic visits and Hlokomela sells fresh produce to stores for extra income. In 2016, Hlokomela decided to find new ways to help fund the health services they offered to farmworkers. Before that, all health services were free because they were funded by grants and other donations. But grants and donations can end at any time, so having such services fully funded in this way means they too can stop at any time. Some form of co-payment was needed, Hlokomela's managers argued that subsidised services are more sustainable than services which are 100% paid for by donors. First, Hlokomela had to work out how much clinic visits cost. Consultants brought in by Discovery helped calculate the average cost per clinic visit for patients, which came to R400. In 2021, Hlokomela That system is still in place. UNLIMITED CONSULTATIONS: An educational poster of Hlokomela's health club card, which gives subscribers unlimited visits to a doctor or nurse at the clinic for a year. (Zano Kunene) Du Preez says some of the farmers weren't enthusiastic about the costs but soon saw the benefits. If they had to take their workers to a government clinic, which was further away, long queues meant they'd have to wait at the clinic all day. But longtime, good relationships with the farmers helped. People from the area also can buy a monthly health card or pay for walk-in visits for R300. By the Hlokomela also sells vegetables and fruit from their garden to retailers such as Pick n Pay as well as local lodges. As of February 2025, the partial-payment system made up around 11% of their budget and the garden 2%. Global Fund support for their sex worker programme — which included money for HIV services — ended in April, but they've secured a six-month extension, albeit with half of the original budget. They'll have to make it stretch. Further funding from the Du Preez says that, just as they got through the Covid pandemic without having to let any staff go, they plan to do the same in this crisis. 'We've been doing it [outreach HIV testing] for the last 20 years and can't stop now … There's always a plan B. Don't ask me what it is now but we'll have one. We always try to have something else.' Zano Kunene visited the Hlokomela clinic as part of a Discovery Foundation media tour in April. The foundation covered the costs of the tour but did not see or approve this story before publication. They also didn't have input in the content of this story. This story was produced by the . Sign up for the .
Time of India
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Prajwal Revanna delaying rape trial, alleges SPP
Bengaluru: Special public prosecutor Ashok Naik alleged that former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna is trying to delay the trial in the rape case registered against him. Arguing in the special court for elected representatives Monday, Naik termed these actions 'delay tactics' by the grandson of former PM HD Deve Gowda and an attempt to prevent the victim-woman from appearing before the court and giving her statement. You Can Also Check: Bengaluru AQI | Weather in Bengaluru | Bank Holidays in Bengaluru | Public Holidays in Bengaluru Special judge Santosh Gajanan Bhat directed Prajwal to decide on appointing a new advocate by Tuesday after his counsel resigned last week. "You have been deferring the trial since Jan. If you don't finalise, the court will appoint amicus curiae," the special judge observed. Prajwal's mother, Bhavani Revanna, tried to make a submission in the court, which disallowed her from doing so, stating she had nothing to do with the case. Prajwal attempted to speak with her, but the court expressed dismay over it. Finally, Bhavani walked out of the court hall. The judge said trial will commence on May 2. Supplementary chargesheet against Munirathna filed CID's special investigation team Monday submitted a supplementary chargesheet in the rape case against Rajarajeshwarinagar MLA from BJP, Munirathna Naidu , to a special court for elected representatives. The preliminary chargesheet against the accused was filed in Dec, accusing Naidu of raping a 40-year-old woman. Additionally, SIT charged his three associates, including a police inspector, with aiding Muniratna in honey-trapping his rivals with HIV-infected women. According to SIT sources, the supplementary chargesheet contains documents, including forensic reports on digital evidence.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Yahoo
Undocumented immigrant uses U.S. citizen's identity fraudulently to get a job in Winter Haven: PCSO
The Brief An undocumented immigrant is accused of fraudulently using a U.S. citizen's identity to gain employment in Winter Haven. The victim said he had lost his wallet in Plant City a few years ago, and his social security card and passport identification were in it at that time. According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, Robles' charges would have amounted to three felonies and one misdemeanor, but due to him being an unauthorized alien, each charge is enhanced by one degree. WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - A man, who the Polk County Sheriff's Office says is in the country illegally, has been arrested for fraud. The backstory According to PCSO, on January 26, 2025, a man discovered that his identity was being used by someone else for employment purposes at Carpenter Contractors of America in Winter Haven. When detectives spoke with the company's human resources department, they said they were given documentation showing the victim's name and date of birth, and copies of the victim's social security card and passport card. READ: Teen on Royal Caribbean cruise attacked by HIV-infected illegal immigrant: Police The victim told deputies that he lost his wallet in Plant City a few years ago and his social security card and passport card were in it at the time. Investigators say Edgar Flores Robles, 44, was employed by the company since March 24, 2024, and has received approximately $27,000 in wages by using the victim's identity. According to PCSO, a representative from Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that Robles entered the United States on April 11, 2019, under a H2A Visa, with admittance until June 11, 2019. Still, he remained in the country illegally and is listed as a non-immigrant overstay. What they're saying "Identity theft can be a very difficult and time-consuming crime for someone to recover from," stated Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. "Had our suspect left the country when he was supposed to, this crime may have never occurred against the victim." What's next Robles has been charged with obtaining property by fraud, uttering a false instrument, criminal use of personal information and unlawful possession of personal identification. His charges would have amounted to three felonies and one misdemeanor, but due to him being an unauthorized alien, each charge is enhanced by one degree. The Source This story was written with information provided by the Polk County Sheriff's Office. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app: Apple | Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter Follow FOX 13 on YouTube
