Overview

• Uttara Kannada police discovered Nina Kutina and her two young daughters living in a cave near Gokarna on July 9 during a routine patrol prompted by landslide concerns.
• Official records show Kutina’s business visa expired in April 2017, she briefly exited to Nepal in 2018, and then returned to live undetected in Karnataka’s forests.
• Local authorities cited dangers from venomous snakes, unstable terrain and landslides as reasons to remove the family from their off-grid cave home.
• After their rescue, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office and the Department of Women and Child Welfare placed the family in protective custody.
• Kutina has defended her choice of an off-grid life, telling news agencies that her daughters swam in waterfalls, received art lessons and never went hungry.