A blue notice is issued to locate a person who is missing or is an identified or unidentified criminal or is wanted for a violation of ordinary criminal law.

The Interpol has issued a blue notice against self-styled godman Nithyananda who allegedly fled India last year without a passport to save himself from a rape case registered against him in Karnataka. The notice was issued against the self-styled godman on the request of the Gujarat police.

A blue notice is issued to locate a person who is missing or is an identified or unidentified criminal or is wanted for a violation of ordinary criminal law.

The embassy of Ecuador in New Delhi last year denied reports that Nithyananda had been granted asylum by the country and that the Ecuadorian government had helped him in purchasing an island in South America. Reports emerged last year that Nithyananda had created his own country on an island near Ecuador.

The external affairs ministry also dismissed these reports and said it had alerted other nations where the self-styled godman might seek shelter that he was wanted for several crimes.

Nithyananda was earlier declared wanted by the Gujarat Police for kidnapping and confining children to make them collect donations from followers to run his ashram. An FIR was lodged against him in November last year, after two girls went missing from his ashram in Ahmedabad.

The Gujarat police are on the hunt to locate the controversial self-styled godman following a complaint by a Bengaluru-based couple that their two daughters have been illegally detained and tortured in the Ahmedabad branch of his ashram.

Nithyananda’s real name is Rajashekharan and he is a native of Tamil Nadu. He opened an ashram near Bengaluru in the early 2000s. In 2010, a video of him in a compromising position with an actress emerged online and he was later arrested on charges of rape. He was also arrested and charge-sheeted in a separate case of rape later.