Nun vs bishop

Nun vs bishop

Police must probe all rape accusations with rigour and secular fairness
There can be many a slip betwixt strict rape laws and speedy police investigation plus prosecution. In the case of the Kerala nun who has accused Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal of rape, it has been around two and a half months since an FIR was registered. Subsequently she has found the case to be moving at snail’s pace and written to the Vatican’s representative in India, about “political and money power” being used “to bury legal proceedings”. As the #MeToo movement has highlighted, such abuse of power is all too common. But police must investigate all rape accusations equally industriously, rather than treating high-status accused with kid gloves.

We have seen in other cases where rape and religion are toxically mixed, like that of Dera Sacha Sauda chief, how a complainant can be harassed and persecuted even as the accused is cocooned by privilege. While only due process will establish whether the charges against Mulakkal can stand in court, there is reason to be concerned that this process is not being as rigorously executed as it should. For example, while reportedly taking a dozen statements from the complainant, police has interrogated Mulakkal on only one occasion so far.

Meanwhile even the other nuns who have come out in her support are being dismissed as out to malign the church. Many of the sex abuse scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church actually have this in common, that the complaint was initially dismissed as hysteria – and the complainant subjected to character assassination. In the present case she has been called a prostitute by Kerala MLA PC George. It takes enormous courage for survivors to speak up in such an environment. Law must give them justice.