An Indian court has cleared a bishop accused of raping a nun between 2014 and 2016 in a case that had shocked one of the country’s oldest Christian communities.
Franco Mulakkal, 54, was arrested in the southern state of Kerala in 2018. He had denied the allegations.
The case sparked widespread protests after the nun alleged that the Catholic Church had ignored her complaints leading to the Vatican temporarily relieving the bishop of his duties.
He was found innocent of the accusation at a trial court in Kottayam city of Kerala after “the prosecution failed to prove all the charges against the accused,’’   Kottayam Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) G Gopakumar said.
However, in their reaction, the nun’s lawyers said they would challenge the verdict in the high court.
Mr. Mulakkal was the bishop of a diocese in Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab. His accuser belongs to the Missionaries of Jesus, a congregation in Kerala that is part of the Jalandhar diocese.
She alleged that the bishop had raped her 13 times and the assaults happened when he visited the convent where she lived in the city of Kottayam, in Kerala.
-BBC-
