Three from Prajwal Revanna SIT awarded MHA medals for investigation

Inspector Shobha N.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Rathnamma K.

Civil Police Head Constable Balakrishna Y.

Three officers from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the sex crimes of former Hassan MP and JDS leader Prajwal Revanna have been awarded the Kendriya Grihmantri Dakshata Padak-2026 for their investigation.

Police Inspector Shobha N., the Investigation Officer in the case in which Prajwal Revanna was convicted just over a year after a case had been registered against him for raping a farm help at their farm, Assistant Sub-Inspector Rathnamma K. and Civil Police Head Constable Balakrishna Y., also part of the same team, have been awarded the medal for 2026 from Karnataka.

Three other police inspectors, Bavuddeen Rukmuddeen Gaddekar, Manjunath and M. Srinivasa Rao, also from Karnataka but unconnected with the Prajwal Revanna case, have been awarded the medal this year.

Following sex videos of several women allegedly recorded by Prajwal Revanna made their way into the public domain in 2024 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Karnataka government formed an SIT under B.K. Singh, Additional Director-General of Police, Criminal Investigation Department. Eventually, four FIRs were registered against Prajwal Revanna for sexual abuse. In a rare turn of events, the accused was convicted in the first case in just over a year, in 2025 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial in the remaining three cases is ongoing.

Following this, the Karnataka government announced a cash reward of ₹25 lakh for the SIT in January earlier this year, which drew the ire of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy. Now the sleuths of the SIT have been awarded medals for their work by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.