2 international papers on identifying sexual assault suspects help Karnataka SIT gather evidence against Prajwal Revanna

One of the papers, Forensic image comparisons of penis in the identification of a sexual offender, was published in October 2022 in the Journal of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences by Erhan Kartal of the Department of Forensic Medicine, Van Yüzüncü Yıl University in Turkey. The Turkish experts successfully identified a person accused of sending photographs of his private parts to a minor by comparing the physical characteristics of the suspects with the characteristics seen in the images sent to the victim.

The second paper, Video image of genital melanosis provides strong evidence to support identification of a sexual offender, was published in the Journal of Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology by Japanese researcher Atsushi Yamada of the Department of the Legal Medicine at Tokyo’s Kyorin University School of Medicine and others.

In this case, a man suspected of assaulting a young girl was identified based on a video recorded on his mobile phone which was the only evidence in the case. “We appraised this case with the cooperation of dermatologists, who diagnosed the pigmentation as male genital melanosis, a relatively rare disease, which matched that on the suspected perpetrator’s penis. Photographs obtained from the video were thus decisive evidence of sexual offence and identified the perpetrator,” said the researchers.

While Prajwal Revanna allegedly recorded the sexual assaults on his mobile phone, the recordings captured private parts and the identity of the victims but did not reveal the face of the perpetrator.

A battery of tests on Prajwal Revanna

Since Prajwal Revanna’s arrest on May 31 a panel of doctors at the Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Centre in Bengaluru have carried out separate comparative medical analyses of features of the private parts of the suspect with those seen in the videos of each of the three incidents of alleged sexual assault.

The panel of experts has provided its first report to the SIT in one of the three cases where medical examinations of Prajwal Revanna were done at the Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Centre on June 5 and reports are awaited in two more cases, sources said. “The reports from the medical panel will be further examined and certified by forensic experts on whether the person seen in the videos of the sexual assault is the person arrested by the SIT for the offences – based on the distinguishing features (of the private parts),” said the source familiar with the investigations.

Earlier, while seeking permission to conduct the medical examination by a panel of doctors the SIT told a local court that “morphological features of the suspect and the one found in images/videos can be compared to match the identity of the sexual offender”. The SIT obtained an order from a special court under Section 53 A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) for the creation of a medical panel to carry out the medical tests on Prajwal Revanna.

According to CrPC Section 53 A, “when a person is arrested on a charge of committing an offence of rape or an attempt to commit rape and there are reasonable grounds for believing that an examination of his person will afford evidence as to the commission of such offence, it shall be lawful for a registered medical practitioner employed in a hospital run by the Government or by a local authority….” to conduct a medical test. The section also says that medical practitioners, “acting at the request of a police officer not below the rank of a sub-inspector,” can “make such an examination of the arrested person and to use such force as is reasonably necessary for that purpose”.

Prajwal Revanna cooperated with the medical examinations in all three cases although he cited an embarrassment in undergoing the process the third time, sources said.

The panel of doctors who examined Prajwal Revanna included experts from the forensic, surgery, dermatology, urology, psychiatry, obstetrics and gynaecology, and medicine departments, said sources familiar with the medical investigation process.

The opinion sought from a panel of medical experts by the SIT is the first of its kind in a sexual crime case in Karnataka. “A paper will be published on the basis of the findings in this case so that this method of identification of persons accused of rape can become a part of the scientific protocol in the investigations of such crimes in India as well,” said a police source.

Prajwal Revanna, who was the NDA candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Hassan, is accused in two cases of the alleged sexual assault of women employed by his family, and a third case of an assault on a JD(S) party worker. The victims were identified based on the video recordings of the sexual assaults by the former MP himself on his cell phones. Sources have said the video recordings of the alleged offences have been certified as authentic and not manipulated by video forensic experts.

The primary evidence in the three FIRs of rape filed against Prajwal Revanna is the statements given to the SIT by the victims of sexual assault. The additional evidence comes from the comparison of the visuals recorded by the rape accused with the physical characteristics of the perpetrator identified by the medical experts.