Swami Nithyananda, whose bedroom act with Tamil film actor Ranjitha had been taped, is said to have been caught on video in a compromising position with five other women, reports Mirror.
Disclosing this to the Ramanagaram district magistrate court judge, the CID sleuths on Wednesday said this was one of the reasons why they want his custody extended.
The swami, however, said, he had committed no mistake. “If I had committed a mistake, then I would have confessed to the court even being questioned. If the court thinks I have done any wrong, it can hang me,” he said.
Magistrate Narayana Prasad, who did not buy his argument, extended the swami's police custody by two more days.
The sleuths said that after arresting Nithyananda, they raided his ashram at Bidadi, where they recovered many CDs and hard discs. They were sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Hyderabad. The FSL authorities had told them the CDs and hard discs contained footage of five more women in compromising positions with Nithyananda.
“There is a need to know who these women are and what is their connection with the swami,” said the CID officials.
The officials also said they have obtained important financial documents from the Bidadi ashram.
The police is however facing a problem of a different kind. The moment they start questioning him, the Swami either goes off into dhyani (mediation) or complains of illness, said a senior CID official, complaining that he was unable to properly question the swamiji.
“When Nityananda was taken into custody, he spent more than 24 hours in the hospital complaining of chest pain. We did not get enough time to question him,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nithyananda requested the magistrate to get his ‘rudraksh mala', which the police had taken away from him, returned.
When the court asked the CID officials why they had seized the mala, they said they had done it to prevent him from harming himself. After questioning, the sleuths returned the mala, but took it back later. According to the CID officials, Ranjitha has agreed to cooperate with the sleuths in the investigations.
In the last six days of his police custody, "nothing much could be brought out" from Nityananda, a CID official said. "Taking advantage of his spiritual standing, Nityananda goes into dhyana mode whenever the police prepares for questioning. After a long wait, Nityananda avoids questioning saying he is ill," the official added.
Nityananda was admitted to hospital on April 26 after he complained of "severe chest pain", but was discharged on Tuesday.
Nityananda has moved the Madras high court seeking anticipatory bail in three cheating cases registered against him in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
In his petition, Nityananda has said that one Aladi Mahendran and a few others, who said they were advocates practising in Puducherry, had submitted a false complaint at Orleanpet police station. They had alleged that the godman had cheated the public, amassed huge properties and insulted religious feelings.
Similar cases were registered by advocate Angayarkani with the Chennai police commissioner and freelance reporter TM Viswanathan with the Coimbatore commissioner, the petition said. "The petitioner submits that without proper verification of facts the police had filed an FIR," it alleged.
"The respondent had registered a case against the petitioner under 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 420 (cheating) sections of IPC. The petitioner is innocent and has nothing to do with the allegations mentioned in the complaint," it added.
Meanwhile, well-known spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has called the discredited swami's acts “unpardonable”, reports Pioneer.
An Art of Living Foundation statement quoted Sri Sri Ravishankar as saying in Cincinnati that Nithyananda “has violated UNAIDS guidelines as well as the rules of tantra.”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar further said, “Only a householder is entitled to tantric sex. Claiming to be a monk and using so many people for one's pleasure is unpardonable. He should have had one partner and announced himself as a tantric guru. It has caused damage to the faith of people in the institution and traumatised many.”
Nithyananda, who hails from the spiritual town of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, has a diploma in mechanical engineering and worked for an auto company. He comes from a lower middle class family and sources confirm that his mother lives in Bidadi Ashram.
The CID has recovered many laptops, high capacity hard discs, mobile phones and money, apart from important documents to nail his lies.
Meanwhile, CID sleuths have started questioning Lenin Karuppan, a former driver of the swami, who had lodged a complaint in Chennai sometime ago.
The driver had admitted he recorded the swami's bedroom act with Tamil film actress Ranjitha and leaked it to the media. Lenin had also said he feared for his life.
Meanwhile, in her first comments after being embroiled in an alleged sex scandal involving self-styled godman Nityananda, South Indian actress Ranjitha on Thursday termed as "malicious" the video clips telecast by some TV channels purportedly showing her in intimate positions with him.
Ranjitha's Delhi-based legal consultant PM Law Chambers said she has also issued notices to online service providers Google and YouTube, asking them to remove the video clips from their portals within 72 hours ending May 2, failing which "appropriate action" would be taken against them as it amounted to defamation.
"Our client dissociates herself from the said video which has caused danger to her life, limb and property," the statement from PMLC said.
PMLC denied the actress gave any media interviews on the alleged scandal and said she had not made any statement before the Bangalore CID, which is questioning Nityananda, arrested on various charges including rape.
"The authenticity and originality of the alleged person featuring in the video taken clandestinely has to stand the test of admissibility before being treated as evidence in the Courts of Law," it said.
"The video clips, which clearly amount to gross violation of various laws of India, have malicious, diabolical and destructive intent, and are clearly aimed at bringing harm to the actress," it said.
Those who were airing and publishing the video clips were doing so for commercial interests, it claimed, adding the actress had "authorised" the firm to initiate legal action against such persons.
The controversy over alleged sleazy activities of Nityananda broke out in the first week of March after some TV channels aired purported video footage showing the actress in intimate positions with him.
Tamil Nadu police registered various cases including rape against Nityananda before transferring them to Karnataka where his ashram is headquartered at Bidadi near Bangalore.
He was arrested from Solan in Himachal Pradesh recently in a joint operation by Karnataka police and their counterparts in the hilly state.
