Kerala nun says bishop raped her 13 times

KOTTAYAM: The Kottayam police on Friday registered a case against a bishop of the Syro-malabar church following a complaint by a nun that she was sexually assaulted by him. Kottayam superintendent of police Hari Shankar said a case was registered against the Bishop of Jalandhar, Frank Mullakkal, at Kuravilangad police station.

The bishop has also given a complaint against the nun, a mother superior of a convent, saying that she was blackmailing him and threatened to implicate him in a sexual harassment case. The nun in her complaint alleged that the bishop sexually abused her after summoning her on the pretext of discussing an important issue in 2014. She said that over the next two years, she was raped 13 times by the bishop.

The nun said that she made a complaint to the church last year and was forced to file a police complaint after the church failed to take action. She said after filing the complaint, she was removed from her official position and complaints of financial irregularities were framed against her. However, the bishop said he was implicated for taking action against her. The nun said that if she doesn’t get justice from church authorities, she will move Pope against the accused.

Bishop Mullakkal, hailing from Kottayam, was appointed as the Auxillory Bishop of Delhi diocese in 2009 and made the bishop of Jalandhar in 2013.

The current case surfaced at a time when a believer of the Malankara Orthodox Church, a member of the Niranom diocese in central Kerala, filed a complaint against five priests alleging that they sexually exploited his wife for many years on the basis of a confession she made to one of them. The police had registered a case after the intervention of the National Women Commission and former chief minister VS Achuthanandan also pushed for filing of the case.