Mystery of sex-swami Nithyananda's passport

The passports of Nithyananda and a Tamil actress he is accused of raping have been seized from a man at the Capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport even as the self-styled godman is on way to Mount Kailash in Tibet via Nepal.

The passports of Nithyananda and a Tamil actress he is accused of raping have been seized from a man at the Capital's Indira Gandhi International Airport even as the self-styled godman is on way to Mount Kailash in Tibet via Nepal.

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The customs department seized 32 passports in all from Nitin Kaushik on Tuesday evening. Of these, 30 are believed to be of Nithyananda's supporters.

Officials said the passports appear to be genuine. Kaushik, travelling from Kathmandu to Delhi, has been detained.

Nithyananda was required to appear for a medical test in Bangalore on July 30 in the 2010 rape case of a Tamil actress. Investigators wanted to conduct a potency test on Nithyananda as he had claimed to be impotent.

Nithyananda hit the headlines in 2010 when a CD purportedly showing the godman and the actress in a compromising position went public.

It was Kaushik's baggage that got the customs department suspicious.

"Kaushik, who was coming from Kathmandu on Indigo flight 6E-032, was stopped for checking. He was asked to open his bag after an X-ray screening," said a source.

Kaushik told interrogators the passports were given to him by a person in Nepal.