FUGITIVE SEX SWAMI NABBED IN HIMACHAL PRADESH HIDEOUT

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, April 21 (Bernama) -- A tainted self-styled godman, embroiled in
a sex tape scandal with a popular South Indian actress, was arrested in the
northern hilly state of Himachal Pradesh Wednesday.

Indian police picked up the 32-year-old fugitive in Solan district, about
50km from Shimla, a popular hill station, where he had been holed up for almost
a month after the scandal surfaced last March.

This followed a joint operation mounted by the Himachal and Bangalore police
to smoke out the man linked to a number of offences, including rape, fraud and
hurting religious sentiments, reported local television stations today.

A local court in Tamil Nadu had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for the
godman after he failed to respond to several summonses slapped on him, following
the expose of a sex romp video footage of the suspect and the actress.

On March 2, a private television channel in Chennai aired the footage, while
the suspect and dozens of his followers were attending a religious ritual in
northern India.

Local media reported that the actress was a regular visitor to the godman's
ashram to seek spiritual blessings to overcome depression after her divorce.

Over the years, the self-proclaimed spiritual leader had built a massive
following from Malaysia to the United States, and claims to have over two
million devotees.

Until his downfall, he had been managing two leading ashrams and scores of
devotees outside Bangalore and in Tamil Nadu, while police suspect large sums of
money, mainly donations from devotees, were misused.

According to media reports, the fake spiritual guru's male assistant exposed
the scandal to the television channel.

-- BERNAMA



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