Washroom incident: K’taka HM Parameshwara says govt not taking filming in college toilet lightly

PTI, Jul 28, 2023, 6:05 PM IST

Karnataka Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara on Friday said the government has not taken the incident of filming in a washroom in an Udupi college lightly.

As the BJP intensified its agitation in the coastal district, Parameshwara said the opposition party was interpreting his statements in a different way, which was improper.

”We have a responsibility. We, the one tasked with running a government, will not take it lightly. We have a responsibility but these people (BJP) are interpreting it in different ways, which does not look proper,” Parameshwara told reporters here.

Three girls were booked for filming their classmate in the washroom at a paramedical college in Udupi 10 days ago. On Friday the three students were granted conditional bail by a court.

The BJP on Friday held a protest march and staged a sit-in demonstration in Udupi against the three girls who filmed a fellow classmate in the washroom on their mobile phone.

The party even demanded that the case be handed over to the National Investigation Agency for a detailed investigation.

BJP’s Byndoor MLA Gururaj Gantihole said fellow party member and National Women’s Commission member Khushbu Sundar might have ”misunderstood” the case. He was referring to Sundar’s statement that no hidden camera was found.

“Some goof up happened when Khushbu had come. When she went to the college, there was no hidden camera there. None of us had ever said that there was a hidden camera in the toilet. Someone gave her wrong information, which is a ‘systematic mistake’,” Gantihole claimed.

The party alleged that the Congress government was taking the issue lightly and wanted to cover it up.

The BJP MLA Yashpal Suvarna who too took part in the agitation alleged that this was not a simple case of girls filming the video in the toilet.

“We have information that these girls shared the videos from their phone to some people,” he claimed. These girls should be taken in police custody,” Suvarna told reporters.

Meanwhile, High Grounds police have arrested a BJP worker Shakunthala H S for her tweet targeting Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

Quoting the Congress party’s tweet that the video was an ”innocent act of children”, she took a dig at the Chief Minister.