Ex-devotee seeks to expose ‘Krishna Leela’

The Chennai police on Saturday booked a fresh case against spiritual guru Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda on a complaint filed by his former devotee Nithya Dharmananda alias K Lenin of Athur in Salem district. The Chennai police also decided to transfer the case to Karnataka, where Nithyananda (who has his spiritual headquarters at Bidadi, about 30km from Bengaluru) reportedly “betrayed” the trust of his devotees. Lenin accused Nithyananda of “misbehaving” with “beautiful” women and “forcing” them into compromising positions with him. Lenin also handed over a CD containing “raunchy bed room” scenes of Nithayanda to the police commissioner of Chennai.

Lenin in his complaint stated that he was spiritually attracted towards Nithyananda in 2004. In 2006 he shifted to the ashram in Bangalore as a staunch devotee, he said. There he found Nithyananda misbehaving with “innocent women” stating that he was incarnation of Lord Krishna and beautiful women devotees were his gopis. He would try to hug and molest them. Some disturbed women devotees stopped visiting the ashram, while one woman also tried to commit suicide, Lenin alleged. Lenin also claimed that he often found “actress Ranjitha” and Nithyananda in compromising positions. Lenin claimed that he was very upset as well as spiritually let down by his guru and hence decided to secretly tape Nithyananda’s romp with Ranjitha in December 2009, Chennai police commissioner T Rajendran told reporters on Saturday.

Lenin also alleged that Nithyananda had threatened to “kill” him on February 18 and February 19 this year when he visited Salem for the inauguration of his new ashram. Nithyananda suspected Lenin of secretly taping his “bedroom scenes”, invited him into his van and threatened to kill him. Lenin, however, escaped from the clutches of Nithyananda by stating that he wanted to answer nature’s call. Lenin asked the police to save the innocent “masses” from the clutches of “Nithyananda”, who had blatantly betrayed their trust, according to the complaint. “As all the incidents reportedly occurred in Karnataka, we have decided to transfer the case to that state,” Rajendran stated.

“Tamil Nadu DG [director general Latika Saran] has already spoken to her counter part in Karnataka and necessary action will be taken. We are willing to fully co-operate with the Karnataka police during investigations in the case,” he said. A case was also registered against Nithyananda in Coimbatore. According to Coimbatore police sources, they were trying to find out the exact whereabouts of Ranjitha as they wanted to question her on her alleged “sexacapades” with Nithyananda. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports stated that Nithyananda could also have harboured links with the LTTE. “He may have sheltered some LTTE leaders in his Bangalore ashram, but it needs to be confirmed,” sources said.