The police on Tuesday nabbed Santosh Madhavan - temple priest-turned-astrologer who’s also a godman-cum-fraudster and a benami real estate shark wanted by the Interpol — at Alappuzha. Police sources said apart from a Rs 50 lakh fraud case that has a Dubai-based businesswoman as the complainant, Madhavan, who had turned himself into Swami Amritachaitanya presiding over a posh ashram and flaunting high connections in the state’s political circle and the bureaucracy, would also be charged with raping a 15-year-old girl no less than seven times.

The police said Madhavan had been luring minor girls into his fold promising educational aid, and many victims, including the identified rape victim, had been used for making pornographic videos. The police, incidentally, had seized a cache of blue films from the Swami’s room, besides sandalwood, a tiger skin and a hoard of marijuana.

The Swami’s arrest coincided with the suspension of Deputy Superintendent of Police Sam Christy Daniel, who had allegedly been one of Madhavan’s many top henchmen. Photographs seized from the ashram’s premises had several known political and movie stars courting the Swami. Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had to struggle to disown his son and small-time movie actor Kodiyeri Bineesh’s alleged connections with the Swami.

The 35-year-old Swami, ironically, was exposed after a local magazine mistook him for his namesake, also from Kerala and also wanted by the Interpol, but for gun running. The Swami had initially claimed innocence and even dramatically walked up to the IGP here offering to surrender, only to have the cops courteously refuse to take him in.

... contd.