The Kerala police on Tuesday booked four Christian priests of rape. The priests belong to the Malankara Orthodox Church which is headquartered in Kottayam.
As reported by us, the matter emerged in the past week when a married women accused five priests of blackmail and sexual abuse. As per the victim’s husband, his wife was abused by the priests for a whopping 380 times. As per him, she was sexually abused by one of the priests before they got married, and even kept making advances following their wedding.
Following the allegations, an inquiry panel had been formed to look into the allegation against the accused working under the administration of the Kottayam church.
After the incident received widespread attention, it was reported that the priests had been barred from officiating all priestly duties and functions as head of parishes. Incidentally the priest named MO John who had informed about the suspension, later courted controversy by asserting that the incident does not deserve a police probe. He also cast aspersions on the victim and her husband by questioning what were they doing till the time the figure of her getting abused reached 380.
Since the initial news reports broke out, Inspector General S.Sreejith – the head of the police team probing the matter, clarified that the victim had named four instead of five accused in her complaint. As per him, the victim would now be asked to give a statement to a magistrate, following which the next course of action would be decided.
A News Minute report has identified the four accused as Abraham Varghese, Job Mathew, Johnson Mathew and Jaise George, who it claims have also been booked for molestation. The report claims that Job Mathew had started blackmailing the victim from 2009, when she had confessed to him that she had a pre-marital relationship.
Following this, the report claims that he threatened to reveal this info to her husband, and was soon joined by other priests who started to threaten her to elicit sexual favours. The report also brought the church’s handing of the matter into question, by quoting the husband as saying that he had complained to the church months back, despite which no action was taken.
