Sleuths want to🔗

Tamil film actress Ranjitha,
caught in a steamy video
with Swamy Nithyananda,
will be summoned by the CID to
record her statement after the in-
vestigating officers are done with
interrogating the disgraced
Swamy. The godman will be
in CID custody till
Monday. Though
Ranjitha is learnt
to have admitted
to her role in the
video, her state-
ment is required
for the purpose
of the CID's
investigation.

On Friday, CID officials
headed by DIG Charan Reddy
and Superintendent of Police Yo-
gappa interrogated Nithyananda
from 11 am till late in the
evening.

According to CID sources,
Nithyananda was asked about his
personal life and how he became
a godman. "We asked questions
about his family background, ed-
ucational qualifications, his pre-
vious work before he became a
Swamy, etc. We also asked him
about his ashrams across the
world, and he said he has 14
ashrams of which two are in the
US. He said some of the ashrams,
including their land, belong to
him while others have been taken
on rent. We asked him what made
him run away from his ashram in
the name of 'spiritual seclusion',
and whether he was simply
trying to evade arrest, to
which he said he
had gone to
Haridwar to at-
tend the Kumbh
Mela. We need
to know under
what circum-
stances he fled to
Himachal Pradesh,"
the sources said.

The CID officials have sent the
seized laptops, hard disks, mobile
phones and pen drives to
the Central Forensic Laboratory
in Hyderabad to have their con-
tents examined.

During the interrogation,
Nithyananda, who has been al-
lowed food of his choice, preferred
to have dry fruits. According to the
sources, he co-operated with his
interrogators. He was allowed a
half-hour break around 2 pm.