After a series of uncertainties and alleged delay, a Special Investigation Team of the Kerala Police has been given the go-ahead to visit Jalandhar for questioning latin Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a senior run.
The probe team is expected to leave Kerala on Friday for New Delhi on its way to Jalandhar for the purpose.
The State police chief, DGP loknath Behera, told newsmen in Kottayam on Wednesday that the investigation team had been given the permission to carry out the probe outside the State.
The investigators will take a decision on whether to arrest the Bishop of the Jalandhar Diocese after questioning him and on the basis of the evidences they have collected.
Behera, who reviewed the progress of the investigation in the nun rape case at a meeting of top police officials in Kottayam, said the progress of the probe was satisfactory. However, he refused to respond to allegations that there was delay from the part of the police in taking action against Bishop Mulakkal on the basis of the nun’s complaint.
He said he could not reply to interpretations and that the police were answerable to the court. Top police officials including Inspector General Vijay Sakhare and Superintendent of Police in Kottayam S Hari Sankar took part in the meeting. However, K Subhash, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vaikom who is heading the investigation, was reportedly not invited to it.
“I have given the investigation team the permission to carry out the probe outside the State,” Behera told newsmen after the meeting.
In New Delhi, the investigators are expected to record the statement of a woman, who according to Bishop Mulakkal had lodged a complaint with his diocese that the nun had a relationship with her husband.
The investigation team has from the very beginning been of the stand that the Bishop had to be questioned at the earliest but it was alleged that the intervention by some of their superiors had delayed this. The decision to send the team to Jalandhar for recording the statement of the Bishop was taken at the meeting at Kottayam on Wednesday in the context of such allegations.
At the same time, sources close to Bishop Mulakkal, hailing from a Syro—Malabar Catholic family in Thrissur district, said he was confident that he would not be arrested and that was why he was not moving the court for anticipatory bail. They said legal experts who had advised him had assured that there was nothing in the case that could lead to his arrest.
In her statements to the police and before a Magistrate, the nun, now 48, had said that Bishop Mulakkal, 54, had sexually abused her 13 times in two years. According to her, the Bishop had raped her first on May 5, 2014 at a guest house attached to her convent at Kuravilangad in Kottayam district where he had stayed when he visited Kerala to attend a Church programme.
The nun had approached the police with a complaint against the Bishop towards the end of June after her efforts to get justice from within the Church failed. She had taken her complaint to all relevant authorities of the Church including Major Archbishop Cardinal Mar George Alencherry of the Syro-Malabar Church, The Vatican’s envoy in India and Papal office itself.
The police have confirmed from other nuns of the victim’s convent and the visitors’ records there that the Bishop had indeed visited the convent on the dates she had mentioned in her complaint and statements. Also, the driver of the Bishop reportedly told the investigators the other day that he had dropped him at the Kuravilangad convent.
Meanwhile, senior priest Fr James Aerthayil of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), a Syro-Malabar Catholic congregation, who has been accused of trying to derail the case against the Bishop by making offers and threats to a nun supporting the victim, surrendered before a court on Wednesday, a report from Kottayam said. He was granted bail by the court.