Protests over continued incarceration of nuns in Chhattisgarh rock Kerala

Widespread protests over the arrest of two Keralite nuns in Chhattisgarh reverberated across Kerala, even as the sisters remained incarcerated on disputed charges of forced conversion and human trafficking at the Durg Central Prison for the eighth consecutive day on Friday. 

Furthermore, public concern over the welfare of the nuns, Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, both senior citizens suffering from chronic ailments, escalated even as worrying reports of the prosecution stringently opposing the bail, despite the assurance of Home Minister Amit Shah, trickled in from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled State late Friday. 

Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany of the Thalassery Archdiocese, who led a mammoth protest rally demanding justice for the nuns, told reporters in Kannur that the Chhattisgarh government’s opposition to bail at the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) court in Basalpur was “condemnable and suspicious.” He said it was unfortunate that Mr. Shah’s writ did not run in the (BJP-ruled) State. “The Centre should intervene immediately,” he said.

Senior leader Ramesh Chennithala said Mr. Shah’s assurance to Kerala MPs appeared to carry no weight in Chhattisgarh. Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said the police opposed the bail as per the Sangh Parivar’s script, rendering Mr. Shah’s assurances hollow. 

Communist Party of India (CPI) national executive member P. Sandosh Kumar, MP, told reporters in Durg that Mr. Shah had promised Parliament members from Kerala that the prosecution would take a moral position on the nuns’ bail application. “However, it did not transpire in the court.”

BJP chief visits Thazhath

Earlier, BJP State president Rajiv Chandrasekhar had called on Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) president Archbishop Andrews Mar Thazhath in Thrissur to brief him on Mr. Shah’s efforts to ensure justice for the nuns. However, Mr. Chandrasekhar said he could not set a deadline on the judicial process. 

BJP Kerala vice-president, Shone George, who attended the nuns’ bail hearing in the NIA court, dispelled reports that the prosecution had opposed the bail plea. “The prosecutor merely said the investigation was at a nascent stage,” he said. Mr. George claimed that the sisters’ counsel presented a strong case for their early bail. “The defence furnished documents proving that the women the police had accused the sisters of spiriting out to Agra for conversion to Christianity were Christians, though not Catholics. The counsel also presented evidence that the women had procured prior consent from their parents to travel to Agra with the nuns for employment in a hospital,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai’s televised appearance in New Delhi had raised hopes in Kerala that the nuns might soon be released from prison.

However, Church leaders, members of the laity and politicians across the spectrum in Kerala seemed to signal a sense of despair about the continued incarceration of the senior nuns reportedly under harsh conditions, even as mammoth protests, some displaying a tableau of the sisters in jail, swamped Kollam, Kozhikode, and Malappuram city centres.