Kerala priest gets 60 years in jail for raping minor girls

kannur (Kerala) — A 51-year-old Kerala Catholic priest Robin Vadakkumchery on Saturday was sentenced to 60 years in jail in three different cases of rape and abuse of minor girls. Four nuns, another priest and one more woman attached to the convent, who were co-accused in the police charge sheet were let off due to lack of adequate evidences.

Thalassery Judge P.N. Vinod also fined the priest from the Mananthavady diocese in Wayanad district Rs300,000 after it was established that he had raped and impregnated a minor girl in 2016.

The girl had later given birth to a baby boy at a private hospital in Kuthuparamba in Kannur in 2017 and was shifted to an orphanage at Vythiri in neighbouring Wayanad district. The matter came into light when the district childline authorities got an anonymous telephone call about the incident.

The priest was tried under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Vadakkumchery was serving as a

Robin Vadakkumchery was also fined Rs300,000. —

YouTube parish vicar near Kannur and was the manager of the Church-backedschool, where the victim, a Class 11 student was studying.

The priest was arrested on February 27, 2017 night near Kochi International airport while he was preparing to slip out of the country. A Childline agency that works among school children had registered the complaint against the priest. During the trial, the victim and her mother turned hostile. Despite that the court proceeded on the basis of evidences collected already and handed out the verdict. —