Kochi: The police have completed the second phase of their probe into a case against Jalandhar bishop Franco Mulakkal in a case of sexual harassment of a nun. This leg of the assignment was carried out on the basis of discrepancies in the statements the Punjab-based Malayali clergyman had earlier given to the investigators in his native Kerala.
The probers will next week grill the 54-year-old bishop after bringing him to Kerala from the upcountry state.
The high-level investigation team, led by an inspector general of police Vijay Sakhare, had found 20 points of inconsistencies in the statement made by both the bishop and the Kottayam-based nun, 44, on her complained that Mullakkal raped her 13 times for two years from 2014. The probe officials are slated to meet in this city, now that the second round of the investigation is over.
The probers found a majority of the bishop’s statements were untrue. The pressure on them, allegedly, is to find as many discrepancies as possible in the nun’s statements.
Investigators found truth in the nun’s statement that she had offered prayers a meditation centre before submitting the complaint. She stays in a nunnery at Kuravilangad, 20 km away from Kottayam in south-central Kerala.
Bishop Mulakkal is slated to participate at a synod in Vatican from October 3 to 28. He has reportedly been making moves within the Church circles to ensure his attendance at the top religious meet in the city-state which is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.
At the Kuravilangad nunnery, five sisters are on a hunger strike, demanding the arrest of the bishop and extending their support to the inmate.
