Nuns with the SOS Action Council staging a demonstration in Kochi (File Photo) | Photo Credit: BCCL

Thiruvananthapuram: Soon after a special investigative team (SIT) filed a charge sheet against rape-accused former Bishop of Jalandhar Franco Mulakkal, a nun associated with the case has been granted police protection on the orders of a Kottayam district judge. Sister Lissy Vadakkel is one of the nuns who are part of Save our Sisters (SOS) Action Council, a group demanding the immediate arrest of Bishop Mulakkal for the rape of a 42-year-old nun.

In his order, dated April 9, the judge directed that Sister Lissy is granted police protection in order to enable her to live in Muvattupuzha. The district judge also ordered the Kerala state government to check whether Sister Lissy should be transferred to a different and safer location until the end of the trial against the rape-accused Bishop.

Sister Lissy is one of the nuns who has openly voiced their support for the complainant nun and has even staged demonstrations outside the Kerala High Court in Kochi, demanding that the Bishop be arrested at the earliest. Earlier this year, sister Lissy had alleged that she and other nuns were being targeted by the Franciscan Clarist Congregation (FCC) for giving public statements against the bishop. The nuns had also alleged that they were being transferred to different locations across the country by the congregation in a bid to silence them.

In fact, a legal expert handling Sister Lissy's case told The News Minute that she may be the first person to have been granted police protection under the Witness Protection Scheme which was drafted and enforced in December of last year. In the charge sheet against Mulakkal which names 83 witnesses, Sister Lissy has been classified as a Category 'A' witness which makes her eligible for police protection citing threat to the life of witness of his/her family.

The charge sheet has identified 25 nuns, 11 priests, and three bishops among others as witnesses in the case against Mulakkal. The former Bishop of Jalandhar was granted conditional bail after having spent almost a month at the Pala sub-jail in October of last year. He was arrested by a SIT led by the Kottayam deputy superintendent of police (DSP) on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Bishop Franco has been accused of confining a nun to a convent in Kerala's Kuravilangad and raping her multiple times between 2014 and 2016.