In 2007, Douglas MacKellar, the jealous husband of Sharmila, a devotee of Paramahamsa Nithyananda, attempts to convince his wife to accuse her guru of sexual abuse. When she outright refused, his friend and co-conspirator Vinay Bharadwaj tries to persuade Aarti Rao to do the same. She also refused. Finally, Vinay Bharadwaj starts to groom a 12-year-old child, repeatedly raping her and attempting to brainwash her to lie for him by accusing Paramahamsa Nithyananda of sexual abuse.
“In 2007 Douglas Mackellar my ex-husband started the rumour in the Bay Area California that Swamiji is practising tantric sex and all the women in the ashram are sleeping with him including myself, his wife. Douglas and other conspirators asked me to make a statement that saying Swamiji made me sleep with him! It was a planned attack on Swamiji, and it doesn’t end there.”
“In 2008, I was just 12 and he (convicted child rapist Vinay Bharadwaj) had been talking to me this entire time and trying to plant ideas in my head about sex, about how there’s so much in Hinduism about Tantric packed practices. I did not know anything about it, I had no experience I was just 12. He took me to his apartment so many times and did all those horrifying things”