R. KRISHNAKUMAR
in Thiruvananthapuram
The Abhaya case gets a fresh lease of life 16 years after the young nun’s death with the arrest of two priests and a nun.
Sister Abhaya, who was found dead in the well of her hostel in March 1992.
ON a summer day in March 1992, a 21-year-old nun, a college student, woke up before daybreak at a convent hostel and walked downstairs to the kitchen alone for some cold water from the refrigerator.
Thus began one of Kerala’s most intriguing crime mysteries, the death of Sister Abhaya, which is about to unravel itself, or so it seems, after 16 years.
It was still dark outside at the St. Pius X Convent Hostel in Kottayam when a few hostel employees found the refrigerator door ajar and the contents of a water bottle spilled on the floor. One of a pair of slippers was under the refrigerator; the other one lay outside, near the convent well. The door leading to the well was locked from outside and a nun’s veil was stuck in between. Later in the day, Abhaya’s body was found inside the well.
The post-mortem report said there were two small “lacerated wounds” above the right ear on the back of Abhaya’s head and abrasions below the right shoulder blade and the right buttock. The direction of the wounds was described as “upwards and inwards”. There was no sign of molestation or rape, according to the report. The cause of death was stated as “drowning” (“A case of cover-up?”, Frontline, May 19, 1995).
What followed was a sensational saga of unsuccessful inquiries by various agencies, distorted at every stage by “unseen hands” with powerful political connections and marked by the destruction of evidence, the disappearance or death of suspects and witnesses, intense rivalry among investigating officers, a vicious trial by the media, and a nagging and critical scrutiny of the investigation by the courts.
On November 19, more than 16 years after Abhaya’s death, the first arrests were made. Those arrested, two Catholic priests and a nun, were remanded by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ernakulam (Kochi), to the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). This happened in the midst of a fresh and unusually fast-paced inquiry by yet another team of the CBI, launched in early November as per the directions of the Kerala High Court.
The charges against those who were arrested were not made public immediately. But while seeking their custody, the CBI told the court that Father Thomas Kottoor, Father Jose Poothrukayil and Sister Sephy were “the accused Number One, Two and Three” respectively in the case and that their interrogation was essential in order to obtain “incriminating evidence” about the involvement of others and to reconstruct the scene of the crime.
Joint Director of the CBI Ashok Kumar told a press conference in Kochi later that he could not reveal the nature of the fresh evidence that had led to the arrests because it was likely to obstruct the course of further investigations. Incidentally, in reply to a question, he also said that the officials of the local police who had first investigated the case and who had allegedly destroyed crucial evidence would have to be investigated “if such evidence emerged”. He also said that the CBI was trying to complete the investigation as quickly as possible in deference to the directions of the court.
Soon, in a surprising turn of events, on November 25, 71-year-old V.V. Augustine, a retired Assistant Sub-Inspector who had prepared the inquest report in the Abhaya case in 1992 and a key witness who had been questioned by the CBI several times, was found dead in a compound near his home in Kottayam, his wrist slashed and mouth covered with froth. Local police said a “suicide note blaming the CBI” was found in his pocket.
Augustine’s death was one more grisly turn to the Abhaya case in which the effort of “unseen forces”, as the courts had come to describe the culprits, had all along been to portray what was a “cold-blooded murder” in popular perception (and as the CBI informed a court years after Abhaya’s death) as “merely a suicide by a nun”, the conclusion of the local police, which conducted the initial investigation.
Within a few weeks of the nun’s death in the hostel and following appeals and an agitation by the ‘Abhaya Case Action Council’ and her aged parents, the case was referred to the Crime Branch of the State Police. The Crime Branch too concluded, in January 1993, that Abhaya had committed suicide. The uproar that followed, with the Action Council approaching the High Court, led to the case being referred to the CBI.
However, in December 1993, as a result of the rivalry among officials of the CBI, the investigating officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police Varghese P. Thomas, submitted his resignation midway through the inquiry. He later called a press conference in Kochi to indicate that he was being forced by his superior officer to conclude that Abhaya had taken her own life, while, in fact, his inquiry had shown that she had been murdered. Thomas also alleged that the State Crime Branch, which had conducted the inquiry earlier, had failed to entrust the evidence collected by it to the CBI. He alleged that the Crime Branch had, instead, destroyed several valuable pieces of evidence.
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