Indian police on 9 July found Russian citizen Nina Kutina living with her daughters, Prema, 6, and Ama, 4, in a cave on Ramateertha Hill near the coastal town of Gokarna, Karnataka. Officers on a routine patrol entered the snake-prone area after spotting clothes outside the cave. The family had been sleeping on plastic sheets and subsisting on forest herbs, fruit and instant noodles. Kutina arrived in India in October 2016 on a business visa that lapsed in April 2017. Immigration officials say she later travelled briefly to Nepal, re-entered India and remained without valid documents, moving from Goa to Karnataka. Following medical checks that found the children healthy, authorities transferred the trio to the Foreigners Detention Centre in Dibboor, Tumakuru, while the Foreigners Regional Registration Office in Bengaluru begins deportation proceedings. The case has widened into a custody dispute after Israeli businessman Dror Goldstein, identified by officials as the girls’ father, petitioned for shared custody and urged Indian officials not to deport the children to Russia with their mother. Goldstein says he filed a missing-person report when Kutina left Goa late last year and claims he has provided regular financial support. In video statements released through local media, Kutina defended her unconventional life, insisting “we were not dying” and calling animals her “friends”. She says she educated the girls with natural materials and that one child was born in India. Authorities, citing safety and immigration concerns, maintain that cave living is hazardous and that repatriation is required under Indian law. Indian officials have alerted the Russian consulate in Chennai and are consulting Israel’s embassy. Deportation logistics—including travel documents and potential exit fines—will be finalised once the Russian mission consents. Until then, Kutina and her daughters remain in detention while a civil court is expected to hear Goldstein’s custody plea.