Even as Gujarat police are on the hunt to locate the controversial self-styled godman Nithyananda – following a complaint by a Bengaluru-based couple that their two daughters have been illegally detained and tortured in the Ahmedabad branch of his ashram – Ramanagara police have said that he has not been seen in his main ashram in Karnataka for the past year.
Nithyananda runs a sprawling ashram called Dhynapeetham at Bidadi on the outskirts of Bangalore.
Officials in Ramanaga police said that Nithyananda has not appeared for the last one year in a court case relating to allegations of him raping a disciple over a period of five years.
The Ramangara police also indicated that he could not have left the country – at least legally – as indicated by the Gujarat police as his passport expired in Septemeber 2018 and an application to renew it was rejected because of the ongoing criminal case.
“The next hearing of the case in front of the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Ramanagar is scheduled on December 9 and he has to appear before it. Since he has already skipped several appearances in the past, it isn’t clear now if he will appear on that date, specially given all the ongoing controversy.”
The Bidadi ashram currently wears a deserted look with hardly any activity. On Friday clips of Nithyananda emerged in which he claimed he was speaking from Kailasa.
The Gujarat police said they were trying to trace the teen and her 21-year-old sister who were allegedly kept in ‘illegal confinement’ by Nithyananda.
