‘I don’t wish to conceal anymore. I wish to be seen and heard’: Nun in rape case towards Bishop speaks out | Lengthy Reads Information

Mulakkal, who was accused of raping Sr Ranit 13 occasions between Could 2014 and September 2016 when he was the Bishop of Jalandhar Diocese, was arrested in September 2018 — the primary time a sitting Catholic Bishop in India was taken into custody on expenses of sexual assault.

In 2022, a trial courtroom acquitted Mulakkal on the grounds that there was lack of proof and there have been inconsistencies within the survivor’s statements. Sr Ranit, who moved the Excessive Courtroom towards the acquittal, is awaiting a listening to in 2026.

“I’ve determined to come back out as a result of it should give energy to lots of girls,” she says, including, “I cannot be defeated. I’ll attend public conferences and communicate the reality. I don’t know what I’ll speak about. However I’ll absolutely speak.”

Nun in rape case towards Bishop speaks out

‘The construction is stifling’

A blue signboard subsequent to the Pala-Vaikkom state freeway declares the St Francis Mission Residence. A steep, slender lane main down from this signal stops at an imposing two-storied constructing at Kuravilangad village in Kottayam district.

Unfold over a six-acre campus, the Mission House is a scattering of buildings, together with a chapel and a convent run by the Missionaries of Jesus, a congregation based mostly in Jalandhar, Punjab. Whereas it’s an all-woman congregation of nuns engaged in pastoral and social work, and has its personal hierarchy, it belongs to the Jalandhar diocese with the Bishop because the patron.

The Mission House is a labyrinth of dimly lit passageways, however sister Ranit walks briskly, with the conviction of somebody who has walked these halls numerous occasions. She has been right here since 2013, when she moved from Jalandhar after the tip of her time period as Superior Basic, the best workplace a nun can maintain in a congregation. It was on the Mission Residence that she led a crew of nuns as they tended to aged destitutes and managed the property for the congregation. It was right here that she was raped, in Room Quantity 20.

Bishop Mulakkal after his acquittal in 2022.

As she reaches her spartan room on the bottom flooring, she says, “It’s the construction that’s stifling.”

Within the darkness of the convent, within the oppressive silence that screams out of its partitions, is a mirrored image of the Church itself and of the inflexible administrative construction of dioceses and archdioceses that govern it.

The hierarchy usually peaks with the Bishop, who not solely has administrative authority over the church buildings and different establishments inside the diocese, however wields vital management over non secular congregations such because the Missionaries of Jesus to which Sr Ranit belongs. It’s a construction that calls for full submission to the authorities, no questions requested. And when somebody does arise, there are penalties. As Sr Ranit was to seek out out.

Could 5, 2014 was a busy day on the Residence. Bishop Mulakkal was in Kerala to attend the ordination of a priest at Chalakudy in Thrissur district, and had knowledgeable the Residence that he could be staying there the evening. Courtroom paperwork say that because the Bishop reached Kuruvilangad from Chalakudy after the day’s engagements, he retired for the evening to Room No. 20. The paperwork say that after 10 pm, he allegedly known as Sr Ranit and requested her to iron his cassock and convey it to him.

Whereas such duties are usually not a part of a nun’s prescribed duties, girls in mission settings usually discover themselves performing them because of the Bishop’s authority and the absence of institutional safeguards.

When Sr Ranit knocked on his door at hand him the cassock, Mulakkal allegedly requested her to deliver him paperwork associated to the current renovation of the kitchen within the Residence. Courtroom paperwork say that when she entered the room with the papers, Mulakkal “bolted the door from inside”, and allegedly disrobed and sexually assaulted her.

Nun in rape case towards Bishop speaks out

“I keep in mind desirous to scream on the time. However I used to be too scared for my life as a result of he was the Bishop, somebody as near God as doable,” she says. The sexual assault allegedly occurred the next day, Could 6, too, because the Bishop once more allegedly summoned her to his room.

Two months later, on July 11, 2014, because the Bishop once more got here to the Residence, Sr Ranit says she was too scared to even do her chores. This time, too, he allegedly raped her.

The assaults allegedly continued throughout every of the Bishop’s 13 visits unfold throughout 2014 and 2016, the final of them on September 23, 2016. He as soon as allegedly known as on the cellphone to make sexually express remarks, her assertion to the courtroom stated.

As she speaks of “the utter disgrace” of what she confronted in Room No 20, the daylight bounces off the stained glass home windows of the chapel, lighting up her face that’s contorted in ache and streaked in tears.

“What he was inflicting on my physique and thoughts, I alone needed to bear,” says Sr Ranit. She says that she was additionally anxious that her organic sister, Sr Alphy, who was a part of the identical congregation in Jalandhar, could be penalised if she didn’t succumb to the Bishop’s needs.

Sr Ranit on the St Francis Mission Residence at Kuravilangad village in Kottayam district.

“I begged him to depart me alone, however he laughed off my pleas,” she tells The Indian Categorical.

By September 2016, two years after the assaults started, Sr Ranit says, she gathered the braveness to oppose the Bishop, telling him throughout cellphone calls that she didn’t need him to remain on the Residence.

The retribution that adopted was swift, resulting in her being faraway from her publish of Mom Superior of the Residence. Sr Ranit’s assertion to the courtroom learn, “(The Bishop) tried to implicate her members of the family in false police instances.”

Whereas the defence highlighted the two-year delay in submitting the criticism, Sr Ranit instructed the courtroom that she had reported the assaults to her religious mom, Sr Lizzy Vadakkel of Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and had additionally spoken of them in her confession to a priest, a holy sacrament that’s protected by absolutely the seal of secrecy binding on the priest.

Sr Ranit says she was too scared to talk out, “Virginity and chastity are central to my perception system, a part of my vows to the church. The Bishop ripped these off me, he broke my vows. There are dire penalties if vows are damaged, even involuntarily. I didn’t wish to be expelled from the congregation. I used to be too scared to talk out.”

The tracts across the Mission Residence now have rows of tapioca, cabbage, cauliflower, ginger and turmeric vegetation.

Courtroom information present that days earlier than submitting a police criticism on June 26, 2018, Sr Ranit wrote to senior Church authorities, together with the Apostolic Nuncio, the Vatican’s diplomatic consultant in India, alleging that she had been subjected to rape.

“I had knocked on each doable door contained in the Church to avoid wasting myself from the Bishop’s cruelty. However not one of the superiors addressed my complaints. I needed to lastly lodge a police criticism,” says Sr Ranit.

‘I assumed I used to be completed’

The case and the sharp glare it solid left Sr Ranit damaged. “I thought of my life to be over. I assumed I used to be completed due to the disgrace of what was inflicted on me,” she says.

However as she locked herself up within the convent, 5 of her sister nuns stood up in a second of sisterhood – Sr Neena Rose, Sr Anupama, Sr Josephine, Sr Ancitta and Sr Alphy, her organic youthful sister who moved from Jalandhar to be by her facet. The 5 nuns pitched a tent within the coronary heart of Ernakulam, at Vanchi Sq., to protest and demand that Mulakkal be defrocked or faraway from the church, arrested and tried in a courtroom of legislation. The protest quickly caught on as about 80 organisations backed the nuns with resistance songs and searing speeches towards Bishop Mulakkal.

Nun in rape case towards Bishop speaks out

On September 21, the Bishop was arrested. Because the case went to trial, the prosecution argued that Mulakkal had used his “official standing, management, supremacy and dominance he was holding because the Bishop of the Diocese” to illegally “confine, rape and topic her to unnatural intercourse”.

Nonetheless, in 2022, Kottayam Further Classes Courtroom acquitted Mulakkal, stating that the prosecution had didn’t show all counts attributable to lack of proof and inconsistencies in Sr Ranit’s assertion. Whereas acquitting Mulakkal, the courtroom noticed, “…when it isn’t possible to separate reality from falsehood, when grain and chaff are inextricably combined up, the one out there course is to discard the proof (of PW 1, Sr Ranit) in toto”.

The prosecution lawyer refused to touch upon the trial courtroom’s order.

A 12 months after the acquittal in 2022, Mulakkal resigned from the publish of Jalandhar Bishop. Nonetheless, he nonetheless holds the title of Bishop since he has not been defrocked by the Church.

Nuns protesting in September 2018 in Vanchi Sq., close to Kerala Excessive Courtroom in Kochi. (Picture Supply: ieMalayalam)

The Indian Categorical reached out to Mulakkal by means of  his lawyer, Senior Advocate Raman Pillai, who stated the Bishop is not going to challenge an announcement. He stated, “She (Sr Ranit) is simply repeating the false allegations she as soon as made towards the Bishop. She will repeat the allegations if she needs.”

‘I used to be a sufferer. Now I’m a survivor’

In 2023, a 12 months after the acquittal, Sr Neena Rose, Sr Josephine and Sr Anupama left the congregation to guide non-public lives.

Nun in rape case towards Bishop speaks out.

With that, St Francis Residence went silent. At present, simply three nuns, Sr Ranit, Sr Alphy and Sr Ancitta, stroll the halls of the constructing that has 36 rooms and a chapel. Moreover, silence is a advantage taught in convents.

Now not, says Sr Ranit, as she takes on an more and more hostile Church.

“For the Church, it’s as if this convent doesn’t exist anymore,” Sr Ranit says, including that they haven’t been getting the month-to-month sustenance funds from their congregation.

“We’re speculated to get Rs 5,000 per 30 days as assist funds, however we’ve got not been getting it. So, we determined to develop greens, sew… do every part we will to maintain the Residence going,” she says.

The tracts across the Residence now have rows of tapioca, cabbage, cauliflower, ginger and turmeric vegetation. In a pen on the campus, hens and geese cluck and quack noisily. On January 2, 2026, a cow and its calf arrived on the Mission Residence.

The nuns have additionally been stitching garments, tote baggage and sling baggage beneath a banner ‘Stand by Me’ to maintain themselves. “A number of clergymen and nuns from totally different congregations and a few involved individuals from the laity have stood by us since 2018. They purchased us stitching machines in order that we may have some revenue from stitching garments and baggage,” Sr Ranit says.

Bishop Jose Sebastian Thekkumcherikunnel, who took over because the Bishop of Jalandhar in 2024, denies that the diocese has deserted the sisters. “The Mission Residence belongs to the Jalandhar diocese and any revenue generated from the House is of Jalandhar diocese. Therefore, factually, the sisters on the house are nonetheless being supported by the diocese. The church has not thrown them out as they’re claiming,” he says.

As she ploughed by means of, there have been occasions when deep despair took over. “There have been days once I felt like I mustn’t have reported the rape. There have been questions on my character, household background and life itself. I felt my head would explode,” she says.

With Bishop Mulakkal’s acquittal, there have been extra questions than solutions. “Learn how to exit? Learn how to face individuals? Learn how to dwell? These had been the questions I requested myself,” she says.

However few issues pained her as a lot as watching the congregation she constructed disintegrate round her. “I used to be within the founding batch of this congregation. Even after I grew to become the Superior Basic, I labored lots to construct the congregation, travelling normally compartments of trains, even sitting close to bogs,” she says.

The congregation, she provides, has shut her out now. “I don’t even get newsletters from them. The isolation is full. It’s an try to interrupt me,” she says.

But, it was out of this deep harm that got here the conviction to struggle again.

“Once I was not in a position to get justice from the church, I needed to file a police criticism. When I didn’t get justice from courts, I made a decision to talk out in public,” she says, including she was essentially the most snug throughout Covid days when everyone needed to put on a masks. “I used to cover behind that masks for lengthy. It’s time to shed it,” she says.

As they await the listening to within the Excessive Courtroom, the three sisters stick with their lifetime of self-discipline, beginning with a prayer at 5.45 am and ending at 10 pm.

She says it’s the life classes she acquired from her father P P Antony, a soldier within the Central Reserve Police Pressure (CRPF), that retains her going. Rising up in Kurichilakodu village in Ernakulam district because the second of 5 siblings, Sr Ranit says she was at all times an introvert – shy to talk up, shy to get on a bus and go to varsity after her Class 10. She was pleased to hang around together with her mom, Philomina Antony, within the household’s coconut groves and paddy fields. “My oldest reminiscence of house is that of accompanying my mom to our paddy subject to ship meals to our employees,” she says.

Contained in the convent of the St Francis Mission Residence. At present, simply three nuns, Sr Ranit, Sr Alphy and Sr Ancitta, stroll the halls of the constructing that has 36 rooms and a chapel.

But it surely was her father, she says, who insisted that she exit and research. After her mom’s loss of life from most cancers when Sr Ranit was 15, she moved to Punjab the place her cousin brother lived and labored as a priest. Someplace alongside the best way, “daiva vili (the decision of God)” occurred and he or she joined the congregation.

Rather a lot has occurred since then, however Sr Ranit insists she received’t hand over. “My father used to inform me, Dany… that was the title I used to be given earlier than I grew to become a nun… Dany, don’t go away something halfway. I received’t. I’ll proceed to struggle and I’ll keep a nun until my final breath. All these years, I stayed a sufferer. Now I’m a survivor,” she says, as her electrical embroidery machine whirrs into life.

She is embroidering a bag for the survivor of the 2017 Kerala actor assault case during which actor Dileep, who was accused of conspiracy to commit rape, was acquitted.

Referring to the sufferer within the case, she says, “They ask me why I didn’t complain earlier. However what occurred to the lady who complained on the exact same day she was sexually assaulted? Did she get justice?”