Nithyananda’s claim also flies in the face of his own statement before the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in April 2010, when he admitted to his interrogators that he was the one who was filmed having sex with Ranjitha. In the 15-page statement, Nithyananda admitted, inter alia, to having had sex with Ranjitha several times as well as with 15 other women devotees.
“It was not me in the video. It is a morphed, manipulated, misrepresented video,” he repeatedly claimed in a press conference at his Bidadi ashram near here.
Resorting to humour, which bordered on the crude at times, he said, “The police should have asked the rape victim ‘If you were being raped why were you going to his room again and again for four years?’” The women devotees, who had gathered in large numbers, laughed and clapped.
The video, found to be authentic by the Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad, seemed to be of no consequence to Nithyananda and his counsel K V Dhananjay. With a peremptory dismissal of the FSL report, he said his own experts from the US had clearly denounced it as fake and had raised a lot of objections to its authenticity.
Out of nowhere also came the sudden statement that he was being blackmailed by “powerful people” who had demanded Rs 100 crore from him and later scaled it down to Rs 60 crore, but he had held his ground and refused to agree. Refusing to disclose names, Nithyananda said he had informed the police of this and since they could not do anything about it, he would reveal the names in a court.
Playing the victim, Nithyananda chose to blame everyone and everything else for his predicament. At different points in time during the press conference, he said he was being religiously persecuted “because of ideological differences”.
He said causing a dent in his popularity was not easy since he was one among the most-watched gurus in the world.
However, in his statement to the CID, of which Deccan Herald has a copy of, Nithyananda had clearly alluded to frequent sexual activity. He had also held his devotees responsible for demanding sex from him.
CID officers reacted saying: “When the matter is sub judice, why should it not be applicable to him?” They said there was scientific evidence to prove that the CD was genuine.