The article quoted a police officer saying Ashok’s son, Sharath, was driving the car and yet his name was not added in the FIR. Hours later, R Ashok made two contradictory statements.

In his first statement, to a Kannada news channel, Ashok said his son was seated at the rear-end of the car that was involved in the accident. The statement raised several eyebrows as the police had already named the occupants of the car in the FIR and Sharath wasn’t among them.

Once the news clip gained traction, he retracted his statement and said his son was not in the car. Since then he has maintained that he will not talk about the case since it is under investigation.