Godman passport seized

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Madurai Adheenam Arunagiri Swami on Thursday expressed anguish over reports that officials in Delhi have seized the passport of his junior pontiff Nithyananda.

Passports of a Tamil actress and 30 other ‘devotees’ of the controversial godman too were seized at the airport on Wednesday, reports said.

“Adheenam is very depressed over these unfortunate reports. It appears that Nithyananda had sought his permission to go on pilgrimage to Kailash with over 100 followers but he did not mention taking any women along”, said a source close to Arunagiri Swami.

He said the senior pontiff had been unhappy over the happenings in the adheenam since crowning Nithyananda as his successor in May.

However, an announcement from Nithyananda’s ‘official site has stoutly denied the “misrepresentations in certain media” that his passport was seized.

The information “is completely false”, said a statement on the Nithyananda website regarding his Kailash-Manasarovar yatra along with a group of over 100 international devotees “on a spiritual pilgrimage”.

“As part of the regular procedure followed by all pilgrims to Kailash-Manasarovar, Paramahamsa Nithyananda and his group have obtained the permit from Tibet, and their passports were sent to the Chinese embassy in New Delhi through a travel agent for visa stamping.

The stamping has been done, the passports have been returned to the group, and they are proceeding with their tour as scheduled. As of today, the group is in Nepal en route to Kailash”, said the ‘official’ announcement.

Several eyebrows have gone up over the ‘spiritual’ yatra to the China-administered places even as a Karnataka court issued directions to him to present himself end of July to take a medical test to verify his claim--made in response to a rape charge--that he cannot perform sex.

The godman did not appear for the test but instead chose to keep his appointment with Lord Shiva at Kailash.