India on Friday said that the passport of fugitive self-styled godman Nithyananda was cancelled and a fresh application of the same was denied as he did not get the requisite clearance from police and several criminal cases have been lodged against him.
"In this case, when we got information about cases pending against him, we cancelled his passport. His passport was issued way back in October 2008 which had a validity of 10 years. It was due to expire on September 2018 but it was cancelled much before that. He again applied after the cancellation, but it was put on hold because of adverse remarks from the police," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told reporters at a weekly briefing here.
He said that the ministry has sensitised the missions and posts about the self-styled godman wanted in several crime cases in India. "We have asked them to sensitise the local governments that in case he transits or he is in that country, they should let us know," Kumar said.
Asked on the extradition process, the MEA spokesperson said that no such requests have been received from agencies.
"We can only act based on inputs we receive from different agencies. We have not received such requests. We can take action once that comes to us," Kumar said adding that it is difficult to "speculate" about his exact location.
Last month, the Gujarat Police said that the self-styled godman fled the country. Police in Ahmedabad had arrested two woman administrators of the ashram, allegedly owned by Nithyananda, and freed two boys who were held captive there.
Two of his disciples, Pranpriya and Priyatattva, were arrested on the basis of a complaint filed by one Janardhan Sharma who alleged that his daughter was held captive in Nithyananda's ashram.
The police took the two women to Nithyananda's ashram in Hathiajan for an investigation and seized laptops, mobile phones among other things.
( With inputs from ANI )