Amritachaitanya remanded to 5-day police custody

Kochi, May 14 (UNI) A lower court here today remanded Swami Amritachaitanya alias Santosh Madhavan, charged with rape of minor girls, making of pornographic films and financial fraud, to five days police custody.

The police arrested Santosh Madhavan here yesterday and produced him at the residence of Judicial First Class Magistrate-II K S Sharatchandran this morning.

The Magistrate allowed the police application to remand the accused into police custody for interrogation.

He would be produced before the court on May 19.

Police yesterday arrested Madhavan after registering a case of rape of minor girls, whose studies he had sponsored. Earlier, the police also raided a guest house, run by his 'Santhitheeram Trust' and his residence at Kadvanthara here.

The raids were conducted following a complaint from Non-Resident Keralite businesswoman Serafin Edwin that the Swami had cheated her of Rs 40 lakh in Dubai in 2002.

In the raid on the swami's flat on Saturday night, police had seized a tiger skin valued at Rs over 1 lakh, pornograhic CDs and magazines, a police uniform and some documents relating to land deals.

Following-up on the pornographic CDs, the police had registered the complaint of a 15-year-old girl that the Swami had raped her on several occasions in 2006. He had allegedly exploited several other minor girls also and made pornogrpahic CDs using them.

Yesterday, the Kerala High Court rejected the anticipatory bail plea of the Swami, against whom an Interpol lookout notice was issued in the cheating case.

UNI XR ARC SJ AE BST1316