December 23, 2020 4:46:12 am
Sister Abhaya was found dead in 1992.
A WATER bottle that had fallen near the refrigerator inside the kitchen with dripping water, a veil found under the door closed from the outside, an ax, a basket, two slippers found in different places in the room and the crucial testimony of a thief. .
All of this was in addition to the case brought by the IWC that led to the conviction of the two defendants in the murder of 19-year-old sister Abhaya on Tuesday, a crime that has been part of the Kerala news cycle since the Catholic nuns The body was found inside a well in a convent in Kottayam on March 27, 1992.
Twenty-eight years and nine months later, a special court of the IWC in Thiruvananthapuram found a priest and a nun guilty of the murder. The amount of punishment for Father Thomas Kottoor, 63, and Sister Sephy, 57, the first and third defendants, will be pronounced on Wednesday.
Hours after the order was passed, the two defendants, charged under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the IPC and on bail since 2009, were sent back to jail.
The CBI had named another priest, Father José Puthrikkayl, as the second defendant, but the court allowed his request for release before the trial, which began last year, citing lack of evidence.
“I had been waiting for this day. The truth has the final victory. I have been praying for my sister’s soul to receive justice, ” said Abhaya’s brother, Biju Thomas, who works in the Middle East. Abhaya’s parents, Thomas Aikkarakunnel and Leelamma, died in 2016.
According to the CBI, Abhaya, an undergraduate university student, was murdered after finding the two priests and Sephy in a compromising position inside the kitchen of the Pius X Convent shelter.
Fearing she would expose them, the agency told the court, Kottoor strangled her while Sephy struck her with the ax. Together, they dumped his body into the well, the IWC told the court while basing its case on circumstantial evidence.
The “Abhaya case” was one of the longest-running and highest-profile real-life murder mysteries in Kerala, with multiple twists and turns. The defendants were detained by the IWC in November 2008, more than 16 years after the nun’s death. And during the trial, eight of the 49 prosecution witnesses, most of them close to the Church, turned hostile.
Among the key witnesses, whose testimony is believed to be crucial, was Adakka Raju, who said she saw two people coming down the stairs of the shelter in the early morning of March 27, 1992. Raju, who had been jailed in connection with a case of theft, he was known to steal copper cables from buildings.
“I had been offered a large amount of money to change my account statement. But I considered Abhaya as my daughter and stood up for justice, ” said Raju, who is now a salaried worker.
Kottoor told reporters that he is innocent. “God is my protector. I will proceed according to God’s plans. I have not committed any crime, ” he said. Sephy broke into the courtroom after hearing the verdict.
“This is the victory of the judiciary. For the past three decades, I have been fighting for Abhaya. This verdict has God’s signature, ” said rights activist Jomon Puthenpurackal, who had been part of a group demanding justice for Abhaya.
The case was initially investigated by local police as an unnatural death before the Crimes Division took over. A year after the murder, he was turned over to the IWC after a group of nuns from various congregations petitioned the then Chief Minister, the late K Karunakaran.
In a closure report filed in 1996, the CBI said it could not conclude whether it was a suicide or homicide case. But Kochi’s chief judicial magistrate rejected the report and ordered the agency to continue the investigation.
In 1997, the CBI submitted a request to accept the closure report, as the culprits could not be identified. In 2007, the court ordered the agency to submit the three suspects to drug testing. Even after testing, the agency said it was looking for more evidence. Finally, in September 2008, the Kerala High Court ordered the CBI to hand over the investigation to the agency’s Kochi unit, then headed by DySP Nandakumaran Nair.
It was a team led by Nair that arrested the three defendants on November 19, 2008.
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