SISTER ABHAYA’S GRUESOME MURDER CASE – JUSTICE DELAYED, DENIED BUT DELIVERED AT LAST
Details of Occurrence:
Sister Abhaya, 21, born Beena Thomas, had taken holy orders in May 1990, and was pursuing a pre-degree course at the BCM College in Kottayam. On 26th March, 1992 – one day before her death, She along with other inmates of the hostel had gone for a Bible Convention and was quite cheerful. She asked her room-mate to wake her up the next morning so that she could prepare for her exam. The victim Sister Abhaya had gone downstairs to the kitchen to fetch drinking water early morning on March 27, 1992, when she accidentally caught Father Kottoor- Age 71, who had sneaked into the hostel, being intimate with Sister Sephy – Age 57, the sole occupant of the ground floor room. To cover up the wrong doing, they attacked Abhaya with a blunt weapon and flung her into the well. The initial investigating team had found a pair of slippers belonging to Abhaya on the ground floor of the hostel near the kitchen, her head cover and a hand axe lying in a corner.
Kerala State Crime Branch:
It took over the investigation from the local police 17 days after the incident. State Crime Brance was quick to conclude that this was a case of suicide by an emotionally troubled novitiate.
V.V. Augustine, additional sub-inspector who prepared the FIR, allegedly destroyed the inquest report. CBI arraigned him as an accused and Augustine committed suicide in November 2008, soon after the first arrests were made in the case.
CBI:
CBI which was later handled the case, concluded that it was a case of homicide, not suicide but it could not prove who murdered Sister Abhaya and recommended for its closure. It is strange the CBI had pleaded with the Court for the closure of the case three times between 1996 and 2005. It is really great that the Court on these three occasions was not ready to buy the CBI’s version of ‘murderer could not be found’.
CBI took over the case in March 1993, but, requested to close the case thrice between 1996 and 2005. It took for CBI 15 years to arrest the accused and another 12 years to secure conviction in what should have been an open and shut case.
Material Evidence collected from the scene was destroyed when the CBI took the case for investigation and it was the work of Crime Branch Officers – K. Samuel and K.T. Michael. CBI made Samuel as accused, but he died. Michael was exonerated by the Court.
CBI’s anxiety to help church and political power centres was very much exposed when an expert doctor was produced as its witness who deposed that the victim was under severe mental trauma after failing in her college exams and had a history of mental illness. The so called Expert Doctor also submitted that women might develop suicidal tendencies during their menstrual period.
Honest CBI Officer Varghese P. Thomas had to resign as his superiors forced him to parrot the suicide theory. Thomas was intrigued by the head injury of Abhyas and destruction of her personal diary. Majority of the inmates though initially confirmed homicide, they turned hostile later.
Commendable Role of Puthenpurackal- Age -52:
Days after the death of Sister Abhaya, people in the locality formed Action Council seeking justice with Jomon Puthenpurackal, also a member of the Knanaya Church, as the convener. After the crime branch closed the case as suicide, it was largely due to his efforts that the court handed over the case to the CBI.
Non-Cooperation Church and Hostel Authorities to derail investigation:
Mother Superior of the convent, who called the fire brigade, apparently told them that Sister Abhaya had fallen into the well while operating the pump. Even Mother Superior died later and it dealt a blow to the investigations.
Great Guts and Honesty of the key Witness – Raju aka Adacka Raju, a petty Thief:
Samuel and other police officials were fabricated cases against Raju to intimidate him to tow their line of narration in the court, but, he was stubborn to stick to the facts. Delay in justice had not become Denial of Justice because of Raju.
Political Support for the Church:
MM Jacob was Union Minister in the Narasimha Rao government while K. Karunakaran and KM Mani who were powerful were leading the State Government. The attempts to scuttle the probe were so explicit that even a section within the Church raised their voice against it.
In 2007, Father Kottoor, Father Poothrikakayil (second accused in the CBI case who like Father Kottoor was teaching at the BCM College where Sister Abhaya was a student and he was also manager of the Catholic Mission Press. He was discharged from the case even before the trial began.) and Sister Sephy were subjected to a narcoanalysis test.
The said Narcotic CDS were alleged to be tampered with. In the meantime, Kerala High Court ruled that narcoanalysis would not be admissible as evidence in the case.
Sister Abhaya’s parents died well before this verdict and her brother got a job in West Asia.
Judgement 229 page:
Court observed: Sister Abhaya was a pious, smart and punctilious girl, meticulous in all aspects, leading an altruistic life and that it was impossible for her to have ended her life on her own. She was killed for chancing upon the amorous liaison of Father Kottoor and Sister Sephy.
The position and nature of head injury on her body lent credence to the argument that she was subjected to assault. A majority of the hostel inmates turned hostile, while the court relied on Thief Raju’s evidence to establish the presence of Father Kottoor in the convent that night.
Raju may have been a thief but he was and is an honest man, a simple person without the need to dissemble, a human being who became a professional thief by the force of circumstances, but a speaker of truth nonetheless. He had been detained and tortured by the Crime Branch for 58 days to extract a confession that he had murdered Sister Abhaya and when he did not budge, lucrative offers were made. But he turned down the offer by declaring ‘I stood for Sister Abhaya like a father would for his child and I am happy that my child has finally got justice.’
Justice rendered mainly due to three people:
1. Kerala Chief Judicial Magistrate P.D. Sarangadharan in 2005 third time refusing to accept CBI request to close the murder case as an ‘untraced’ one by observing: “Murder took place in a convent, a walled property, where access was restricted. Hence the possibility of some unknown person or an outsider committing the crime was non-existent and the culprits could be identified.”
2. Jomon Puthenpurackal, also a member of the Knanaya Church whose perseverance had resulted in getting justice in the murder case.
3. Eye Witness of Raju aka Adacka Raju, a petty Thief.
E-Touch Proudly Present a Bouquet to these three people for restoring faith in the system.
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