Kerala police suspects rape accused Bishop planning to leave country

Kottayam, July 11: Kerala police has alerted Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on suspicion that Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who has been accused of raping a nun, has plans to leave the country.

A police team probing the allegation of rape against a Bishop of the Jalandhar diocese Bishop Franco Mulakkal went through the statements given to it and a magistrate by a nun, who had accused him of sexually assaulting her.

The probe team examined the statements given to it and a judicial first class magistrate under CrPC Section 164, said an investigating official after visiting the nun at her convent in Kuravilangad, near Kottayam.

In her complaint to the Kottayam district police chief, the nun has charged the Bishop with rape and unnatural sex multiple times at a small town near Kottayam between 2014 and 2016.

Two days ago, the nun had complained to the National Commission for Women that the Kerala Police was "not working" in the case as the accused is a "highly linked" person. NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma had said this after she met the nun at her convent on Saturday.

Sharma met her two days after a magistrate court recorded the nun's statement in the case.

(With PTI inputs)