Causing further embarrassment to Kerala’s Christian Church, which is still struggling to get out of the scandal relating to the arrest of a 48-year-old senior Vicar for raping and impregnating a 16-year-old girl in Kannur district less than five months ago, a 45-year-old priest has been arrested for sexually abusing two minor boys, inmates of an orphanage at Meenangadi in Wayanad district.
Kerala Police personnel from the Meenangadi police station took Father Saji Joseph, a native of Kottiyoor in Kannur district, into custody on Monday evening from Mangalore, Karnataka where he was hiding at an estate of a relative. He was brought to Meenangadi on Monday night itself and a court in Kalpetta, Wayanad on Tuesday remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Muhammad Shafi, who headed the police team that nabbed Fr Joseph, told newsmen at Kalpetta that he had been charged under Sections 9 and 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act and Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
The matter came to light after the two boys, Class 8 and 9 students aged 13 and 14, told their guardians about it. The guardians alerted Child line authorities who informed the police after getting the details from the boys during counseling. The priest went into hiding last weekend after the police, who registered a case over the abuse, launched a search for him.
As per the statements the children gave to the police, the priest had sexually abused them at the St Vincent’s Balabhavan, Meenangadi more than a year ago. Police officials said the priest had tormented the boys several times since March, 2016. The orphanage where the incident took place is not functioning presently.
About 30 children were staying at St Vincent’s Balabhavan when the priest had joined it as its in-charge but when it reopened after vacation, only four children returned. For the same reason, the police are examining whether more children had been abused. They are also examining whether he had committed similar crimes in Andhra Pradesh where he had been staying earlier.
“After going into hiding he had stayed at many places. We had formed special teams to search for him. One team was sent to Andhra Pradesh as he had studied there and another had gone to Karnataka,” DySP Shafi said. Acting on specific information, the police took Fr Joseph into custody from the estate of a relative in Mangalore on Monday.
Kerala’s Catholic Church had fallen into a deep crisis in February last after 48-year-old influential priest Fr Robin Vadakkumcheri, manager of a Church-run school in Kottiyoor and Vicar of a parish church at Neendunokki, Kannur, was arrested for raping and impregnating a 16-year-old girl.
Fr Robin had abused the girl, a Plus 1 student at the school of which he was the manager, at the parsonage of his parish church several times. She gave birth to a baby boy at a Church-run hospital on February 7 and the priest, who had gone into hiding, was arrested from Chalakudy, Thrissur 20 days later while he was on his way to flee to Canada from the Kochi airport.
The crisis had deepened further for the Church after the police booked another senior priest, who was also the head of the Child Welfare Committee in Wayanad, and six nuns, among whom were a senior doctor and manager of the hospital where the girl had given birth to her baby, for helping him hush the matter.
The State had witnessed several child sex abuse scandals involving Christian priests in the recent years, forcing the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council to consider formulating a protocol for priest and nuns. The Robin scandal also forced the diocese to which he belonged to adopt measures like installing surveillance cameras in churches and presbyteries.