Arrest warrant issued against Karthik Gowda

BANGALORE: The VIII additional chief metropolitan magistrate on Thursday issued a non-bailable warrant against Karthik Gowda, 28, son of railway minister DV Sadananda Gowda who has not appeared for questioning in a rape case against him.
A 27-year-old Sandalwood actress had accused Karthik of marrying her against her will and raping her.
RT Nagar police issued Karthik two notices to appear before them in connection with the complaint.
The arrest warrant was issued even as a city civil and sessions court was hearing an anticipatory bail petition filed by the railway minister's son.
Arguing for Gowda, senior counsel and former advocate-general BV Acharya contended there was no rape as alleged since she has been insisting they were married. "Even the kidnap allegation is false as they travelled in different airplanes," he added.
The sessions court adjourned the hearing to Friday, when the public prosecutor will argue against the petition.
A special team led by an assistant commissioner of police has been formed to trace and arrest Karthik Gowda, police sources said. "There are rumours that Karthik is in Delhi. We have alerted Madikeri and Mangalore police too," a senior police officer said.
"Section 376 is a non-bailable offence. The court has issued an arrest warrant under Section 73 of the CrPC pertaining to evading arrest in a non-bailable offence," said Alok Kumar, additional commissioner of police (law and order).
Bangalore City police commissioner MN Reddi, said, "It's left to the court to give a warrant to police or any other authority to arrest a person accused in a non-bailable case and who does not appear before police for investigation. We issued two notices to Karthik from the time the incident came to light. He has not responded. We treat him as an absconder and we requested the court to issue a warrant."