New Delhi: Bishop Franco Mulakkal has been acquitted by the Kottayam Additional District Court in its verdict on Friday in the 2018 nun rape case. He has been acquitted of all the charges after a trial that lasted for more than 100 days.
As the prosecution failed to produce evidence against the accused, the Additional District and Sessions Court II acquitted the Bishop.
In 2018, a nun complained against the priest publicly and levelled rape charges against him. The nun had alleged Mulakkal raped her many times at her Congregation’s mission house in Kottayam district between 2014 and 2016.
The complaint by the nun sent shockwaves across Kerala as plenty of other nuns came out in her support and protested demanding the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
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The rape case against the Bishop was registered by police in Kottayam district in June 2018. Special Investigation Team, which probed the case, arrested Bishop in September 2018 and charged him with wrongful confinement, rape, unnatural sex, and criminal intimidation.
Mulakkal arrested in September 2018 was lodged in judicial custody for 25 days.
The nun had earlier submitted her complaint to the Church in June 2017 about the sexual abuse and rape, no action followed.
He had been the first Indian Catholic bishop to be arrested in a rape case.
Franco Mulakkal had been the bishop of Jalandhar but was taken off the administrative charges after the scandal broke out in 2018.