Pereira’s advocate Milind Pawar also denied the charges against his client. While Father Vincent Pereira, a priest who is the main accused in a sexual abuse case under POCSO, has been given interim bail, the city police are now investigating the role of the Bishop of the Poona Diocese.
The Pune police had lodged the FIR under POCSO Act against three persons on September 30. Father Pereira, the main accused in sexual abuse of a 15-year-old in December 2021, is also an accused in a similar case of 2018. City police said they are also investigating the role of Thomas Dabre, the Bishop of Poona Diocese, who is also named in the FIR with the Kondhwa police station. “We are investigating the role of the Bishop in connection with the FIR lodged against him under POCSO Act,” said Pune Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta on Sunday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Namrata Patil, who is monitoring the investigation, said, “The Bishop’s name is there in the FIR. We are examining his role.”
The police said Pereira lived in an institute headed by the Bishop. “Under the POCSO Act, anyone who has the knowledge or information of a crime against children has to report it to the police. Otherwise, he too becomes an accused in the case. The family of the victim has told us that they had informed the Bishop about it but he did not act on it. The Bishop, however, has told us that he had sent an email to the police informing them about the complaint received by him…We have sought a copy of the email from him. But it is true that the Bishop has been made the co-accused in the case along with another priest from Mumbai,” said Sardar Patil, senior police inspector from Kondhwa Police Station.
Father Malcolm Sequeira, Vicar General, Poona Diocese, the spokesperson for the Bishop, said, “There is no truth in the FIR lodged against the Bishop. This is because the Bishop had reported the matter to the police through the director of the institute where Periera lived. The director had informed the police about the complaint received by the Bishop from the boy’s family.”
Pereira’s advocate Milind Pawar also denied the charges against his client. “My client is a victim of church politics. The victim’s family had earlier given in writing to the police that they had no case against Pereira and they have sorted out the matter after discussion. And now an FIR has been lodged against him and two other priests who are above 90 years of age,” he said.
Meanwhile, the boy’s father told The Indian Express, “Pereira abused my son at our home on December 4, 2021. Before that, in November, he had asked my son objectionable questions at Pune railway station. On both the occasions, he had given us in writing that he had committed a mistake and sought forgiveness. But we reported the matter to Bishop Thomas Dabre. The Bishop first refused to take cognisance of our complaint. But then, he said he sent the complaint to the Vatican which will take action in three months’ time.”
The family said that when nothing happened in three months, they went to at least five police stations to lodge an FIR.