By Ashraf Padanna
Gulf Times
August 13, 2008
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=235295&version=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A nun who committed suicide in a Kerala convent was tortured by her superior “mentally and physically”, her father alleged here yesterday.
“She had to do all the chores in the convent like cleaning toilets and washing dishes before leaving for the school (where she teaches) and after coming back. And at night the senior sister would forcibly sleep with her,” Pappachan, a cook who works at the Bishop’s house in Kollam, said.
His daughter Anupa Mary, 22, who joined the St Mary’s Convent at Pallithottam two months back, committed suicide on Monday leaving a note alleging she was unable to bear the harassment by the nunnery’s head.
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| Mary and Pappachan… foul play |
“She had confided this to her mother and sister and threatened to commit suicide. But I came to know about it only after her death,” Pappachan told reporters at the Medical College hospital here where he arrived with his daughter’s body for autopsy.
Mary, the second of six children of Pappachan and Bijiamma was found hanging in the bedroom of the convent. A member of the Vimala Hrudaya Franciscan congregation, she had been serving at another convent until recently.
According to the police, the suicide note expresses her difficulty to adjust with the new environment. She had also recorded her “disagreement” with the Mother Superior of the convent.
M R Ajithkumar, superintendent of police, Kollam said that investigations have commenced and all aspects would be probed.
“This allegation I have heard only today and on television. Yesterday when we took the statement from Pappachan, he did not level this allegation. Anyway now that he has publicly aired this, we will take his statement again. I have asked the investigation officers to look into all aspects. Now we are waiting for the post-mortem report.”
Kerala Women’s Commission chairperson D Sreedevi has demanded a probe.
“It’s an eye-opener for everyone. Our observation that nuns are being maltreated in convents appears to be correct,” said the former Kerala High Court judge.
“Now we would closely monitor the investigation and ensure that the case is conducted properly.”
Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Meenakshi Thampan, a member of the panel which took statements of both the parents, said the allegations appeared genuine. “What the parents told me was shocking. It is high time that we took serious note of the plight of young girls being forced to take the vow,” she said.
The KWC had recently observed that nuns in Kerala were facing hardship and were not entitled to their parental property. It wanted the state government to enact a law to prevent exploitation.
Critics say there have been cases where male members of the family forcibly send girls to the nunnery as they do not want to part with their properties.
Nuns have no right to property as they adopt nun’s life after taking the poverty pledge. Many nuns however are forced into convents by parents too poor to marry them off.
The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) is yet to solve the murder mystery of Sister Abhaya even after 16 years.
Yesterday, the high court asked a CBI officer who conducted the probe into the 1992 death to explain why the investigation has not made progress.
Abhaya, a resident of Pious X Hostel in Kottayam, was found dead in the well of the convent on March 27, 1992. In November 1996, the CBI concluded that that the death was homicide but it could not trace the murderer because “the evidence has been destroyed during the previous investigations’ by the local police.”
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