Video of Kottur Swamiji with a woman goes viral

Gangavathi: Virakta Kalmath in Koppal district witnessed protest on Thursday after a video purportedly showing Kottur Swamiji with a woman in a hotel room was streamed by news channels.

Once the video got viral hundreds of devotees rushed to the Virakta Kalmath and expressed anger and outrage towards the Kottur Swamiji and urged seer not to return to the Math.

Devotees thronged the mutt demanding the ouster of the 56-year-old pontiff while some other followers said the allegations were false and it was an attempt to defame him. It was then the elders who pacified both the groups and controlled the situation.

Sources said the Lingayat mutt is 400 years old and Kottureshwara became the peethadhipathi in 1995. The video is suspected to have been shot by the seer’s former driver, Mallaiah Herur, who told media he had been “procuring” women for the pontiff for a decade now. The woman seen in the video is said to have been brought to the mutt to cook for the seer in 2010.

Thus no case has been filed against the seer following charges of sexual harassment but Herur lodged a complaint with Gangavathi police on Thursday, accusing the seer of threatening to kill him following the surfacing of the video. Ashok, the trustee member of the mutt, said a decision had been taken to remove the pontiff.