BHOPAL: A man who was on the run for 11 years after being sentenced to life for the gang-rape of four nuns outside a church in 1998 has been arrested from his native village in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh.
Having jumped parole in 2006, 48-year-old Pidiya made his way back to his village of Runkheda in the Kalyanpura area of Jhabua district and returned to a life crime again. He was caught while terrorizing villagers with a sword in native village, said Jhabua superintendent of police Mahesh Chandra Jain.
Pidiya and 24 other men were accused of raping four nuns outside a church in Nawapada village, also in the Kalyanpura area of Jhabua district on September 23, 1998.
The men knocked on the door of the church and asked for medicines. When the doors were not opened, they broke in and dragged the nuns out. Four of them were taken to the fields and raped.
The gang proceeded to loot the church. The incident triggered global outrage.
In April 2001, the district and sessions court of Jhabua convicted 18 of the accused men in the case. Ten convicts, including Pidiya, were sentenced to life in prison. The other eight were given prison terms of two or three years each. Five were acquitted of criminal charges in the want of evidence, while two others were on the run in 2001.
After the sentencing, Pidiya was lodged at the Indore Central Jail. In 2006, he was granted 10 days parole, but he went on the lam. The police of Indore then put a Rs 10,000 bounty on Pidiya's arrest.
While at large, Pidiya secretly moved between MP, Gujarat and Rajasthan working as a daily wage labourer in Gujarat and Rajasthan and occasionally visiting his native village.