How a mole, scar on left hand helped Karnataka cops nail Prajwal Revanna

Bengaluru: Former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna may have taken care to ensure his face was not seen in the hundreds of videos that he himself had shot of his alleged sexual assaults on multiple women and had gone viral early last year.

But, the former MP was nailed by a few of his body parts like a mole on the left middle finger and a scar on his left hand that were visible in the videos, sleuths from the SIT that probed the sexual cases against Prajwal Revanna said.

A city court for elected representatives on Friday convicted Prajwal Revanna for raping a woman. Officers, who investigated the case, told DH that “global best investigation practices” were used to gather evidence in the cases and DNA tests helped them in securing the conviction.

“The woman had left behind the petticoat at the servant’s quarters at the farmhouse where she was raped. We combed the farmhouse and found the petticoat in a cupboard. Semen traces on the petticoat matched those of Prajwal and the woman’s DNA traces were also found on it. Obviously, nobody had touched the petticoat though three years had passed since the incident. Semen traces deteriorate when there is humidity and moisture in the air. But, in this case, the fluid depositions on the petticoat were intact and that was the icing on the cake for the investigators,” said an officer.

Most videos were shot by Prajwal himself with his right hand, sources pointed out, adding that the team borrowed from investigation techniques used successfully in countries like Japan and Turkey. 

Turkey technique

According to the officers, the technique was used in a child pornography case in Turkey where pictures of a male genital organ had been sent to a minor girl. 

“In this type of investigation, photos of the body parts of the suspect, which could be anything from the genitals to scars, are forensically examined and compared with what is
available in the images,” an officer explained. And this technique was adopted by us and it is the first in India, added the officer. Delving into the details, another investigator said that they took screengrabs of the video which captured Prajwal in the act with the victim woman.

“We took the screen shots where the perpetrator’s body parts were visible. Then we took photos of the body parts of the accused, including his genitals, palms, fingers, ankles and the feet which showed a particular bone structure and shape and bent in the toes. They were then sent to a team of experts from forensics, dermatology, urology and orthopaedic disciplines that was specially formed for the case,” the officer explained. 

“The doctors from the team also physically examined the accused to establish his body parts were indeed the same as that in the video grab. We were legally equipped, thanks to the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, which provides us with powers to collect various types of measurements of accused, convicts and other individuals for the purpose of criminal identification and investigation,” the officer said.

Videos compared

The images in the videos were also compared with the scene of crime by the FSL team. “For instance, if a table or a photo frame in the video were removed later, we marked the area where the video shows
the table or the photo frame and the we could identify marks that proved that the objects were indeed kept at the same place at the time of the crime. 

 “We also used the voice sample analysis where the accused was speaking in hushed tones and the victim was writhing in pain. The victim’s statement confirmed it. The same helped strengthen our case,” said the officer.