Nuns happy with bishop's arrest

Kochi: The five nuns who staged a public protest demanding the arrest of bishop Franco Mulakkal near the High Court junction have expressed the hope that the case against the bishop will be pursued vigorously by the authorities concerned.

The sisters, who spoke to reporters before the St. Francis Mission Home at Kuruvilangad on Friday evening, expressed their happiness over the police finally deciding to arrest the bishop.     

“We are happy. We are not having any personal enmity against bishop Franco. We have only opposed his nefarious activities,” Sr Anupama said. She and others also said that they have forgiven the persons who tried to foist false cases against them. The incident shows that this is an opportunity for the Church to shed its silence and take action against the guilty, they said. The sisters also expressed their gratitude to all persons who supported their agitation.

The protest by the nuns had developed into a spontaneous agitation with a slew of social activists converging at the Vanchi Square at High Court junction for the past 14 days. 

“The important thing is to ensure that he is punished according to the laws of the land,” the sisters said. The arrest is the victory of the vigil kept by civil society, said Fr Augustine Vattolly, convener of Save Our Sisters Action Council (SoS Action Council) which spearheaded the agitation.            

The arrest brings to an end the first phase of the struggle. The second phase will focus on ensuring punishment for the bishop according to the laws of the land, he said. “We needed to work out an action plan with this in mind. A meeting will be held as early as possible with all those who came and declared solidarity with the struggle,” Fr Vattolly said.

Police will have to explain delay
The police can justifiably take credit for the meticulous investigation in the alleged rape of a nun by Jalandhar bishop Franco Mulakkal that came up with credible evidence against the accused but will have to explain the delay of more than a month in his arrest despite being convinced about his guilt.

The police in a statement before the Kerala High Court on August 14 had said after the investigation and the evidence it had collected, “it is revealed that the accused bishop Franco committed unnatural offence and committed rape repeatedly on different dates from May 5, 2014 to September 23, 2016, on the de facto complainant against the will and consent of her by abusing his dominance over her as bishop of Jalandhar after confining her in the guest room of St. Francis Miss-ion Home, Kuravilangad.”

The investigation team, lead by Vaikom deputy superintendent of police K. Subhash, had met about 80 witnesses including nuns who used to be in Jalandhar along with the de facto complainant before submitting the report. The team had seized several documents including the register of visitors at the St Francis Mission Home which came in handy for the police to dismiss the bishop’s claims of alibi. The police also took into custody the letter of a nun to her father in which she said her life was under threat and that bishop Franco would be responsible “if anything happened to her.” The nun, a member of the Mis-sionaries of Jesus congregation, later left the congregation, the statement to the High Court said.

The team had taken statements of priests, the bishops of Pala and Ujjain apart from meeting major archbishop Cardinal George Alenchery whom the complainant had claimed to have complained about the sexual abuse by bishop Franco.

However, the police took more than a month to arrest the bishop on the plea that it was trying to iron out differences in the statements of the witnesses and the accused.

The police team which came under attack of the delay was relieved when it got a pat on its back by a division bench of the High Court which noted that the investigation was conducted in a “professional and efficient manner” after perusing a second report on September 14.