Cops begin probe outside Kerala

The Kerala Police probing the rape of a senior nun allegedly by Latin Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar Diocese began its investigations outside the State on Friday. The police team which reached New Delhi on Friday will go to Jalandhar from there to question Bishop Mulakkal.

The investigation team headed by K Subhash, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vaikom, has said that there is substance in the complaint the nun (48) belonging to the Missionaries of Jesus congregation controlled by the Jalandhar Diocese had lodged against Bishop Mulakkal, 54 and that they have got clear evidences.

However, the arrest of the Jalandhar Bishop is unlikely to take place immediately. Sources within the police said that the probe team would decide on the need of arresting the Bishop only after it completed all the other procedures related to the investigation and holding discussions with their superiors in the force.

The probe team was to record the statements of a woman, who had petitioned the Jalandhar Diocese against the nun accusing her of having a relationship with her husband. The woman, who is in Delhi with her family, is a relative of the nun. The investigators were to question the woman’s husband also.

Though the woman had petitioned the Mother General of the nun’s congregation against her two years ago, no Church-level action has been taken on its basis so far. Instead, some people within the Church had allegedly used her complaint in order to threaten the nun, according to certain priests of the Jalandhar Diocese.

There are rumours about a conspiracy behind the woman’s decision to submit a complaint against the nun to the Mother General of her congregation especially as the complaint had come up just when the victim had been knocking at the doors of Church authorities one after the other to petition against the Bishop.

The Bishop had claimed that he had not committed any offence against the nun and that she had been threatening to trap him in a sex scandal as an act of revenge for taking action against her on the basis of the woman’s complaint. He had also complained to the police that he had received threats from the nun’s relatives.

According to the nun’s complaint to the police and the statement she willingly recorded before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC, Bishop Mulakkal, hailing from a Syro-Malabar Catholic family in Kerala’s Thrissur district, had sexually abused her 13 times between 2014 and 2016 at a guest house attached to her convent at Kuravilangad in Kottayam district.

The police team which included apart from its chief DySP Subhash a Sub-Inspector, three civil police officers including a woman and a cyber expert were planning to record the statements of Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro, the Vatican’s representative in India, and Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.

The nun had claimed that she had lodged complaints against the Bishop with all relevant Church authorities including the Apostolic Nuncio and Cardinal Gracias. Since both The Vatican’s representative and Cardinal Gracias were out of Delhi, the investigators might collect details of the nun’s complaints and the related matters from their secretaries.

The probe team also had plans to visit Madhya Pradesh in order to record the statement of Bishop Mar Sebastian Vadakkel of Ujjain Diocese. It is said that it was to this Bishop the victim had first passed information on her sexual abuse by the Jalandhar Bishop. The team may also question some of the Delhi-based nuns of the Jalandhar Diocese.

Meanwhile, reports from Jalandhar said that Bishop Mulakkal was confident that the investigation would not lead to his arrest and that he had received advices in this regard from top legal experts. But preparations are said to have been completed in Kochi for moving the Kerala High Court for anticipatory bail in the event of possibility of arrest.

The police have begun investigations outside the State and taken a final decision on questioning the Bishop in the context of mounting criticisms that they have been delaying the process in order to give him and his Diocese enough time for forcing the complainant to drop the case.