Issue Blue Corner Notice for sisters missing from Nithyananda ashram: Gujarat HC

AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat high court on Wednesday said the Centre should issue a Blue Corner Notice for the two girls who allegedly went missing from self-styled godman Nithyananda’s ashram located in Delhi Public School (DPS) Ease campus at Hathijan in Ahmedabad.

The high court bench said this while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the father of the girls in 2019 in which he alleged that the girls had disappeared after being adversely influenced by Nithyananda. The petitioner sought custody of his two daughters.

After the sisters were traced to Jamaica, the high court directed in February this year that they address the court from the Indian embassy and present their stand on whether they were taken out of the country by force and kept against their will. The girls had communicated to the court that they feared returning to India. Later in March first week, the girls told the high court that they would address the court but not from an Indian Consulate in the Caribbean, but from the US.

The International Police Cooperation Unit (IPCU) or Interpol earlier issued Blue Corner notices in connection to the two girls but they were withdrawn after they communicated to the court.

Following the high court’s direction, a letter written to Gujarat police by the government of Jamaica was submitted to the high court. According to people familiar with the development, the Jamaican government in the letter said that the two girls were accompanied by two Jamaican citizens when they came for the visa approval and it was suspected that they were brought as part of human trafficking.

The high court on Wednesday observed that the girls did not appear before the court via video conferencing then what was the hurry of dropping the Blue Corner notices. The court suggested the Centre re-issue the Blue Corner notices.

The high court also remarked that the lawyers representing the two girls have sent them repeated reminders through e-mails but they have been ignored by the girls.

A further hearing of the case will be held on Friday.

In January, Interpol issued a Blue Corner notice to help find Nithyananda weeks after the Gujarat Police sought the agency’s intervention for this. The self-styled godman fled India last year amid allegations of rape and sexual abuse.

Interpol is an inter-governmental organisation with about 195 member countries. “Interpol Notices are international requests for cooperation or alerts allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information. Notices are published by the General Secretariat at the request of a National Central Bureau and are made available to all our member countries,” according to Interpol’s website.

The Blue Notice, according to the website, is issued to “collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime.”

The self-styled godman has in the past claimed to have founded his own ‘Hindu sovereign nation’ called Kailasa.