Bengaluru , April 21: Within 24 hours of issuing a lookout notice against controversial godman Nithyananda Swami, Karnataka’s criminal investigation department arrested him on Wednesday in Himachal Pradesh with the help of the local police.
The CID tracked his mobile phone and calls made to him and, with the help of the service provider, zeroed in on him in the north Indian state.
Director-general of police (CID) D.V. Guruprasad confirmed that his officers led by deputy superintendents of police Chandrashekhar Hosakeri and Hussain arrested the swami from a house in the Akri police station area in Himachal’s Solan district.

“They arrested him in the afternoon with the help of the local police. He will be produced before the court in Shimla and brought to Bengaluru on Thursday along with one of his devotees, Swami Nithya Bhaktanand, who is accused number six in our case,” Mr Guruprasad said. He said the CID team had left for Himachal Pradesh on April 16 following a tipoff.
When contacted, Solan police chief Amar Singh Rathore told this newspaper that officials of the two police forces arrested Nithyananda from a house in Mamlig village where he was staying for the past month along with four other devotees. “He has been taken to Shimla to be produced before a local court, and will be sent to Bengaluru on Thursday,” Mr Rathore said.
The CID had registered a criminal case against Nithyananda under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for rape, criminal intimidation, insulting religious sentiments of people and conspiracy after the Bidadi police handed over the case to them. The Tamil Nadu police had originally registered cases against him in the first week of March after his former driver K. Lenin filed a complaint and made public a videotape of Nithyananda in a compromising position with Tamil actress Ranjitha.
Nithyananda, who went missing for almost a month, later stepped down as head of his Dhyanapeetam ashram in Kengeri and associated trusts to lead a life of “spiritual seclusion”.

Age Correspondent