By Aishwarya S Iyer and Kathleen Magramo, CNN

(CNN) — A Russian woman and her two young daughters were found living in a cave deep in the forests of southern India years after her travel documents expired, according to local authorities.

The woman, identified as Nina Kutina, 40, and her daughters, aged six and four, were found while inspectors were patrolling Ramatirtha Hill - a landslide-prone tourist site on the coast of southern Karnataka state - on July 9, according to a release issued by the office of local police superintendent M Narayana.

They had lived in the cave for years, police said, adding that the mother’s visa expired eight years ago.

Kutina defended her decision to live off the grid with her daughters in an interview with India’s ANI news agency, describing a life of swimming in waterfalls, painting and doing pottery.

“We have big experience to stay in nature, in jungle. We were not dying. I did not bring my daughters to die in jungle,” Kutina told ANI in English, while seated next to her daughters in a car.

“They did not feel bad. They were very happy.”

Kutina said their visas had “finished… a short while ago” and that her family had lived in four countries before they went to India in 2017.

Police said records showed she arrived in Goa on a business visa that expired in April 2017 and left the country to Nepal in September 2018, before returning to India.

Kutina was “reluctant to provide proper details regarding her and her children’s passport and visa,” Narayana said.

She did not reveal whether her children were born in India or Russia, but she told authorities she had a son who died in Goa, Narayana told CNN.

“She does not want to leave as she loves the nature, but we have to follow procedure,” Narayana said. The fact she managed to be in India since 2017, without the knowledge of local authorities, was a security concern, he added.

“Going (into) caves is a dangerous thing, and with two children, and to live there for a week or more is astonishing,” Narayana added.

Officials are taking steps to repatriate Kutina and her children, who do not have passports, to Russia, Narayana said. They have been moved to a nearby detention facility specifically for foreigners illegally in India.

CNN has sought comment from Russian embassy.

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