BENGALURU: Imprisoned former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna received a phone, Sim, charger and pen drive in a well-coordinated smuggling exercise in collusion with five others, including a jail staffer, police claimed, adding all five have been arrested in the case.The ex-MP, convicted in a sexual assault case, is said to have paid Rs 70,000 to smuggle in the mobile handset and Rs 30,000 for Sim. Jail warden Prakash Gawade allegedly handed the phone to Prajwal personally. Undertrial prisoner Mohammed Tausif, an accused in DJ Halli case, hid the Sim in his mouth and passed it on to Prajwal, police said.Gawade, in subsequent visits, handed over the charger and the pen drive to the ex-MP. The jail staffer had earlier been arrested and suspended on charges of smuggling ganja into the prison.In Aug, Central Crime Branch sleuths raided Prajwal’s barrack and seized the phone, along with Sim card, charger and pen drive. An FIR was registered against Prajwal and his co-inmate, Pratap Rai. However, Rai pleaded innocence, stating Prajwal was using the mobile phone even before he joined him in the barrack.Deputy commissioner of police (Electronics City) M Narayana said the five persons arrested in the Prajwal phone smuggling case have been identified as Naveen Kumar, Manjunath, Mohammed Tausif and Siddiqui, and Gawde.“While Naveen and Siddiqui arranged the phone and the Sim, Manjunath connected these men with Prajwal and Gawde. The four private persons and Prajwal said that besides paying money for mobile and Sim, they paid Rs 1 lakh (Rs 70,000 for mobile and Rs 30,000 for Sim) to Gawde,” an investigating officer told TOI.This year alone, some 300 mobile phones have been seized from the inmates of the central prison, Parappana Agrahara, Bengaluru.DGP (Prisons and Correctional Service) Alok Kumar, who took charge in Dec 2025, said, “Prison officials seized 299 phones, and CCB police recovered one from Prajwal Revanna during raids. After I took charge, officials serving in Bengaluru Central Prison have been transferred to other central and district prisons so that we could keep vigil on them.”Further, police arrested chief warden Vijay Kumar and warden Srikanth Naik on charges of supplying mobile phones to the inmates. Kumar was arrested on charges of supplying the mobile to an inmate identified as Bharat alias KTM Bharat. During a raid in May 2026, police had discovered one mobile and one SIM card with Bharat. Investigations revealed that Kumar had hidden the mobile and the SIM in his dress and, being the chief warden, escaped the frisking at the prison entrance.Warder Srikant Naik was arrested for supplying 12 mobile phones to the inmates in different barracks. Naik’s role was exposed after police raided the barracks in January and recovered four mobile phones, two SIM cards and one charger. As investigations continued, inmates revealed it was Naik who supplied them.
