New Delhi: The chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Rekha Sharma, expressed her shock over the acquittal of Jalandhar bishop Franco Mulakkal from the charges of raping a nun by a Kerala trial court.
Taking to Twitter soon after the verdict, she urged the survivor nun to move the higher court against the acquittal.
"Shocked at the judgment of Kerala Addl. dist and session court. The victim nun must go to the high court. NCW is with her in this fight for justice," Sharma's tweet read.
The nun at the Missionaries of Jesus convent in Kottayam's Kuravilangad had filed a case against the priest in June 2018, on which an SP level inquiry had been held. The case is that the priest had raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. She had filed the case with the police when there had been an easy-going stand by the Church on her internal complaint.
The Special Investigation Team, which probed the case, arrested the Bishop in September 2018 and charged him with wrongful confinement, rape, unnatural sex, and criminal intimidation. The trial in the case started in November 2019, had concluded on January 10.