Thrissur: Overnight raid at priest’s home

Thrissur: A police team led by Aluva DySP K.A. Vidhyadharan raided the official residence of Fr. Tony Kallookaran, parish priest of Sanjo Nagar St Joseph  Church at Koratti near here.

The raids began at 6 p.m. on Monday and went up to 3 a.m. on Tuesday.

The team which is probing the case in which some priests of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese allegedly forged fake documents with the help of an IT expert against Cardinal Mar George Alencherry seized the hard disc of the computer which was kept at the guest room of the residence of  Fr Kallookaran.The official residence of the priest is on the church premises.

Cops said that the hard disc would be verified with the help of IT experts.

At first, the two guest rooms of his residence were forcibly opened as the priest was absconding and the keys were not available with the staff of the church.

Later, the bedroom of the priest was also opened by breaking the locks after midnight.

Parishioners support priest

Nearly 2,000 parishioners, including children and women, gathered on the premises of the church protesting against the raids and in support of the priest.

They chanted prayers and most of them returned to their homes after midnight. But several men stayed back in the church till the raids were over.

A few days ago, when the police came to arrest the priest, the parishioners had gathered in huge numbers to prevent the arrest.

The parishioners said that Kallookaran was an honest person and was keen to prevent corruption in matters related to the Church.