Kerala: Jalandhar-based Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested by the police on Friday in Kochi after three days of interrogation in the sensational Kerela nun rape case. Mulakkal is likely to be produced in a court at Pala.
Mulakkal was grilled for the last three days in a hi-tech interrogation cell in the Crime Branch (CB) office at Tripunithura.
Reportedly, the SIT took the statement of the survivor nun again today at a convent at Kuruvilangad in Kottayam.
In the meanwhile, Mulakkal’s lawyers are readying a bail application and the police are moving towards seeking a remand. Mulakkal’s relatives have been approached to pledge security for his bail application.
The former bishop, who was grilled for more than eight hours on Thursday, was directed to depose before the investigation team today by 10.30 am. However, he reached at 10.40 am from a five-star hotel in Kochi for the interrogation amid tight police security.
According to reports, a nun belonging to the catholic congregation of Missionaries of Jesus in Jalandhar filed a police complaint against Bishop Franco Mulakkal in June. In the complaint she has alleged that Mulakkal raped and subjected her to unnatural sex 13 times during 2014 to 2016 at a convent in Kuravilangad.
Earlier, Mulakkal resigned from his post after the victim had urged for an intervention by the Vatican and demanded the bishop’s dismissal from his post as the head of the Jalahandhar diocese.
Mulakkal had also approached for the anticipatory bail which was rejected by the Kerala High Court on September 18.
Prasanta Patnaik