Bangalore : Nithyananda Hospitalised with ‘chest pain’

Bangalore: April 27 (DHNS): In what appears to be a means to avoid interrogation, arrested self-styled godman Nithyananda on Monday was admitted to hospital near here moments after he was remanded to police custody for two additional days. 

According to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology director C N Manjunath, following tests on Nithyananda, it was found that all the parameters were normal. Apart from blood, tests, Nithyananda underwent ECG and ecocardiogram checks. “On Tuesday morning, we will make him undergo treadmill test after which we will take a decision on whether to discharge him or not. He is admitted to the ICU at present,” Manjunath told Deccan Herald.

Police sources said that Nithyananda complained of a shooting pain in his chest while on his way to Bangalore from the Ramanagara Judicial Magistrate’s court which remanded him to police custody for two more days.

He was produced in the court on Monday afternoon after being in police custody for four days following his arrest in Himachal Pradesh on April 21 and subsequent arrival in Bangalore.

Police sources suspect Nithyananda is “feigning” chest pain “for he thinks this was one way to squirm out of the interrogation” which is taking place at the CID headquarters here. For the first two days, he told his interrogators that he did not remember anything relating to the sex video.

Later, he is believed to said he “thought he recognised Ranjitha, but not the man (he himself)” featured in the video secretly filmed by a former devotee Lenin Karuppan, alias Dharmananda.

On Saturday, Nithyananda is believed to have wept, though he tried to evade questions by giving his customary smile. He, however, stopped smiling when he was asked to do so by his interrogators. “He thought he could use the smile to good effect, but that didn’t work those interrogating him,” police sources said.

Several  former devotees told Deccan Herald that Nithyananda’s chest pain was “as fake”. One senior devotee said that during most spiritualism classes he would boast of his ability to work ceaselessly for five days at a stretch.

He is also believed to have told the police that he was on medicine for treatment of hypertension, which has not been brought out by the tests carried out at the hospital on Monday.

Nityananda should have had only one partner: Ravi Shankar

New York, April 26 (IANS) Disgraced self-styled godman Swami Nityananda violated the rules of tantra by ‘using so many people for one’s pleasure’, Art of Living Foundation head Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said Monday.

A Foundation statement quoted him as saying in Cincinnati in the US that Swami Nityananda, now in custody, ‘has violated UNAIDS guidelines as well as the rules of tantra.

‘Only a house holder is entitled for tantric sex. Claiming to be a monk and using so many people for one’s pleasure is unpardonable,’ Ravi Shankar said.

‘He should have had one partner and announced himself as a tantric guru. It has caused damage to the faith of people in the institution and traumatised many.’

Several criminal cases relating to obscenity, criminal intimidation, rape and hurting religious sentiments have been slapped against the 32-year-old Swami Nityananda.

Now in police custody in Karnataka, he was on the run since March 3 after television channels showed footage of him in bed with two women.