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The two have been asked to furnish a bail amount of Rs five lakh each and have been barred from travelling outside Kerala.
The accused in both cases are people sworn to a life of celibacy. And forbidden desires were at the heart of both the crimes.
The two convicts – Father Thomas Kottoor and Sister Sephy – were granted parole for 90 days on May 11 and 12 by the DG Prisons.
The Special Court judge K Sanilkumar heard the convicts before reading out their sentences. The verdict has come as a near surprise as crucial prosecution witnesses, at least nine of them, had turned hostile during the trial stage.
The nun of the Knanaya congregation, a second-year pre-degree student of Kottayam BCM College and a resident of Pius X convent in Kottayam, was found dead in the well of the convent on March 27, 1992.
Sister Abhaya, a resident of Pius X convent in Kottayam in Kerala, was found dead in the well of the convent on March 27, 1992.
Sister Anupama, witness no: 50, went back on her earlier statement to the CBI that she had seen Abhaya’s veil and slippers in the kitchen of the Pious X Hostel in Kottayam on the morning of her death on March 27, 1992.
Two more prosecution witnesses, both nuns from the Knanaya congregation to which the prime accused in the Abhaya murder case belong, were declared hostile.
The former college professor Thressiamma painted Fr Thomas Kottoor and Fr Jose Puthrikayil, as men whose behaviour caused discomfort among women, especially girl students.
Crime Branch DySP K T Samuel had in 2014 testified before the CBI that he had handed back the material objects (a nun's veil, a brown plastic slipper and a water bottle) to the SDM office through a head constable numbered 3037.
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