KOCHI: The Church should constitute Internal Complaints Committees (ICC) to facilitate nuns to lodge their grievances, National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Rekha Sharma has said. “We had taken up the complaint of a nun that she was sexually assaulted by the Jalandhar Bishop. Any institution with 10 or more women should form a complaints panel so that the victims of sexual assault can seek their help. Even after the bishop was charge sheeted, the church continued to support him. They are printing calendars with his pictures. They are glorifying a person charge sheeted for sexual harassment,” she said at a presser here on Saturday.
Rekha Sharma said the victim in the nun rape case was not able to avail of police security as the Church refused to entertain it. “They want the nun to be shifted to a shelter home if she wanted police security. We wanted to summon the Bishop but he has gone abroad,” she said.
‘CPM should handover the plaint against Sasi to police’
The NCW chief urged the state CPM leadership to handover the complaint, lodged by a woman party worker against P K Sasi MLA alleging sexual abuse, to the police. The NCW has registered a suo motu case against the MLA. “We came to know from the media that the party conducted an internal inquiry and reprimanded him. However, even after finding substance in the complaint, the party has not forwarded the complaint to the police.
Though there was a woman member in the inquiry panel, she also failed to inform the police. As the commission does not have the contact address of the victim we are not able to contact her. The NCW is ready to hold her hand if the woman wants to go ahead with the complaint. If she does not want to take the complaint forward, we can’t do anything,” said Rekha Sharma.In the P K Sasi case the NCW had booked a case and sought a report from the state DGP. However, we didn’t get any reply. We will send a reminder and if the DGP fails to respond, we will summon him, she said.
‘NCW waiting for P C George’s reply ’
Rekha Sharma said P C George MLA was abstaining from appearing before the commission in the case regarding abusive comments against the victim in the nun rape case. “We summoned him twice, but his advocate was giving excuses each time. He neither denied the allegation nor apologised to the victim.
“We know he had made such anti-women comments in the past also. I have written to the Kerala Assembly Speaker and forwarded a copy to the chief minister also. He should present himself before the commission or we will have to order his arrest. We are waiting for his reply,” she said.