The next time you ask what’s in a name, consider this: A one-time temple priest-turned astrologer-turned alleged NRI fraudster-turned Godman-cum-benami real estate operator (and much more), is the latest news sensation in Kerala, his face and profile hogging front pages and almost all local TV channel now panting to come up every hour with more dark tidbits and legends about him. All this because the media here took to believing, and still insists, that he is really his far more notorious namesake accused of a lot more potent stuff, including smuggling sophisticated weapons for extremist outfits linked to the 1993 Mumbai blasts.

The man in the headlines, Santosh Madhavan, used to be a school dropout turned priest for many years in local temples in Kochi, before he took on an astrologer’s image and flew off to Dubai, only to end up in a financial fraud. Before Interpol Dubai put out a red corner alert for him, Madhavan made his way back to India, grew a beard, put on white robes, courted the local glitterati including top film stars and promptly turned himself into

Swami Amritachaitanya. The 2004 Interpol alert for him and his sidekick Saifuddeen Ali Kannu who fled with him, says both are wanted in Dubai for fraud and mentions his date of birth as 18 March, 1973.

The other Santosh Madhavan, who too had a red corner Interpol notice for him pending since 1993, was declared wanted by the Mumbai Police after his brother Trikesh Madhavan was arrested following the seizure of some imported weapons soon after the Mumbai blasts. The brother named him as the kingpin and he was charged, in police language, of a “criminal conspiracy to commit terrorist acts with the use of sophisticated fire arms, with the intention to adversely affect communal harmony”. This Santosh Madhavan was born on 7 June, 1960, and UAE cops had finally caught him in Abu Dhabi by end-2003, at the instance of the Interpol in India.

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