Hyderabad: A self-claimed godman and his wife hailing from Kerala, who had stolen gold ornaments and cash from the houses of devotees, on the pretext of performing prayers, were arrested in a joint operation by the Balanagar special operations team and Mailardevpally police on Friday.
According to the police, the accused, Shivoham Rama Shivanujam alias Rama Shiva Chaithanyam (37), a native of Kaladi in Kerala, and his wife Shivoham Thejasvi (29), were involved in 11 cases of thefts at various places in the city.
Shivanujam, an orphan born in Kerala, grew up at Shivoham Gnana Guru Peetham at Kaladi. He learned the Vedas and left the ashram in 1998. For three years, he roamed several places such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, Varanasi and Amar-nath, as part of a devotional tour and finally settled in the city in 2001.
Shivanujam used to perform prayers and yagams in the houses of devotees. He married one Thejasvi, granddaughter of a city-based priest in 2009, and opened an ashram at Bowenpally in 2014. He shifted the ashram to Sunder Nagar Colony in Erragadda, where he became popular among the public and started giving lectures on television channels.
“Shivanujam lured innocent people on the pretext of helping them in solving problems by performing prayers at their houses. During the prayers, he would put gold ornaments of the devotees in a silver coated pot, which he would wrap the pot and tie.
He would then ask the devotee to pray to god in pooja room, when he would replace the pot with another one containing stones. Shivan-ujam warned the housemates to not open the pot without his permission,” said Cyber-abad police commissioner V.C. Sajjanar.
He said that after stealing the gold, Shiva-nujam would avoid meeting the devotees and attending their phone calls.
About 11 such incidents were reported with three at Bowenpally, two in SR Nagar, one each in Vanasthalipuram, Jeedimetla, Mailardevpally and also two in Andhra Pradesh.
The police teams of SOT and Mailardevpally, arrested Shivanujam and his wife and recovered over two kg of gold.
