KOTTAYAM: Another sexual harassment allegation has come up against bishop Franco Mulakkal, former head of Latin Catholic diocese of Jalandhar, who is accused of rape by a nun of the same diocese.
As per the documents accessed by The New Indian Express, the 14th witness in the rape case, who is also a nun of the same diocese, had given statement to the investigation team on September 9, 2018 against Bishop Franco that she also encountered sexual misbehaviour from him.
As per the nun's statement, the bishop had groped and kissed her on April 30, 2017 at a convent in Kannur. This apart, he forced her for a sexual chat between 2015 and 2017.
"I had to contact the bishop over the phone for some official needs since 2015. But, shortly after the bishop started talks with sexual connotations over the phone, which was disgusting for me. He also talked about sexual acts and later started describing various body parts of me and the bishop," the statement described.
According to her, though she was not interested in sex chat, she couldn’t oppose the bishop in fear of expulsion from the church.
Meanwhile, the failure of the police in registering a case in connection with incident has kicked up controversy. Kollam rural police chief Hari Sankar, who supervised the investigation in the rape case, said though police had made all the efforts to register a case, the victim was not willing to press ahead with
a complaint.
"Since the place of occurrence of the crime was in Kannur, we had passed the information to Kannur police. Though Kannur district police chief had approached her for registering a case, she was not interested in prosecution," Hari Sankar said.
Meanwhile, police sources said some other witnesses in the rape case also had deposed before the investigation team about sexual misbehaviour of the bishop. "Since, all the incidents had happened in Jalandhar or outside Kerala, Kerala police had some limitation in taking up with the cases," said sources.
Meanwhile, Save our Sisters (SOS) forum has demanded the police to register a separate FIR against bishop with regard to the new allegation. "It is mysterious that police didn’t initiate suo moto case even after nun had made a serious deposition before the investigation team. A fresh investigation should be launched into the allegation. More importantly, police should ensure that the victim, who belongs to the same diocese, is not intimidated or influenced by the bishop," said SOS office bearers in a press release.
They added advocate John Ralph will appear for the victim when the court considers the discharge petition of the bishop on Saturday.