Nithy’s personal bank account has 70 lakh – 7.1 million – dollars in it!
The arrests were made by a joint team of the Karnataka CID sleuths and the Himachal Pradesh police. An associate of Nithyananda, Nitya Bhaktananda alias Gopal Seelam Reddy, was also arrested.
The two were produced before the local magistrate, and the CID personnel obtained a body warrant against them. They will be brought to Bangalore on Thursday afternoon.
CID chief Dr. D.V. Guruprasad said a team conducted a search on the ashram on Tuesday and seized important documents, including hard disks. However, he refused to elaborate on the contents.
Asked under what charges Nithyananda was arrested, Guruprasad said it was in connection with two cases. “After the case was registered against him at the Bidadi police station, Nithyananda went absconding. We want him in both cases,” Guruprasad said. SIM card helped cops track godman
Bangalore: Controversial godman Nithyananda and his close aide were arrested on Wednesday after the authorities tracked a mobile phone having a Himachal Pradesh SIM card to establish their location, Solan superintendent of police Prem Kumar Thakur said.
Nithyananda has rejected the sex scandal allegations against him. He resigned in March as the head of ‘Dhyanapeetham’, which he had founded near Bidadi on the outskirts of Bangalore.
After the controversial tapes of Nithyananda with a Tamil actress were aired on television on March 3, the godman’s former aide, Kuruppan Lenin, filed a complaint with the Chennai police commissioner. Another case was registered at Coimbatore by one Vishwanath for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus. The Bidadi police registered the cases based on these two complaints. The case was handed over to the CID, after which sleuths started getting complaints from overseas through e-mail.
One Nataraj from Bangalore also filed a complaint, saying that Nithyananda had cheated him after promising to cure his skin disease.
Before handing over the case to the CID, the Bidadi police had registered a case under Sections 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 120B criminal conspiracy, 506 (threat to life) and 420 (cheating). While this was based on a complaint by Kuruppan Lenin, another one was registered in Coimbatore by Vishwanath, saying that Nityananda had hurt religious sentiments by indulging in such acts.
Nithyananda’s lawyers have said that they were ready for a legal battle. A legal team is working on the case and will move the appropriate court in Bangalore on Thursday. – Times News Network
Earlier report dated 21 April 2010.
Absconding ‘sex-tainted’ Swami Nityananda was arrested in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday (April 21, 2010).
The spiritual guru, who has numerous cases registered against him from rape to fraud, was picked up from a hotel in a small town named Arki, after several days of surveillance carried out in a joint operation by the Himachal Pradesh and Bangalore police.
A non-bailable arrest warrant had been issued by a magistrate court in Chennai recently. The case had been handed over to the CID for investigation. Sriperumbudur District Munsif-cum-Judicial Magistrate S Gunasekhar on Monday had issued directions to the Superintendent of Police, Rama Nagar in Karnataka where the godman’s Bidadi ashram is located, to execute the warrant irrespective of whether or not he is available at his address. He also directed the SP to form a special team, if necessary, to arrest the godman and produce him before the court by May 20.
After his arrest in a police raid on the hotel he was staying in, Nityananda is expected to be produced in the Solan district court where police will seek his transit remand and then transport him back to Karnataka.
Nityanand is accused in under many sections of the Indian Penal code, including murder, sexual molestation, rape, unnatural sex offences, hurting religious sentiments, fraud, threatening a life (a complaint by Dharmananda, the man who carried out the sting operation that first implicated the swami) and other sections. The cases are pending in multiple courts in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and one has been slapped even in California on the complaint of a formal disciple.
Facing increasing negative publicity following a video sting operation exposing the ‘celibate’ swami’s sexual indulgences and then several more serious complaints, Nityananda announced he was quitting as head of his ashram in Karnataka to lead a life of ‘spiritual seclusion’ – which in his case meant playing hide and seek with the police in an attempt perhaps, for the controversy to die down.
In an interview to TIMES NOW in Uttarakhand while he was ostensibly in hiding, he maintained that there was no concrete proof to back any of the charges against him; however his refusing to surrender himself for questioning till now had been a major an obstacle to progress in the probe. His arrest now paves the way for a proper investigation, and he can be questioned by police in connection with all these cases. – Times Now
See also:
- Nithyananda Videos: A testing time for Hindus – Radha Rajan https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/nityananda-videos-a-testing-time-for-hindus-radha-rajan/
- The Nityananda Mea Culpa Interview? – Rajiv Malhotra https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/video-the-nityananda-mea-culpa-interview-rajiv-malhotra/
- Debutante Dharma-Gurus: Violating a civilizational patent – Sandhya Jain https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/debutante-dharma-gurus-violating-a-civilisational-patent-sandhya-jain/
- Nithy resigns from ashram & all associated trusts – Media Reports https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/nithy-resigns-from-ashram-trusts-media-reports/
- Hindu Activists: Sexist, Racist & Xenophobic – Ishwar Sharan https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/hindu-activists-sexist-racist-xenophobic-ishwar-sharan/
- Sex, lies, a feature film, Nithy & Ranjitha – Kunal M. Shah https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/sex-lies-a-feature-film-nithy-and-ranjitha-kunal-m-shah/
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