Peerumede: It was a day of redemption for a group of petty thieves from a Tamil Nadu village.
The three men picked up by the Kerala Police a week after they broke into a church and a church-run school at the border town of Kumily were not prepared for what awaited them at the magistrate’s court on Wednesday.
Fr Thomas Vayalunkal, the vicar of the St Thomas Forane Church at Kumily, pardoned the four men who made away with Rs 1,22,890 from the church on September 30, 2015. He told the Peerumede Judical First Class magistrate that the church did not want to proceed with the case and urged the accused to abandon their sinful ways, reported Manorama.
The undertrial prisoners were so overwhelmed that they fell at the feet of the priest and promised to mend their ways during a private meeting approved by the court. The priest informed the magistrate of this through his lawyer. The court will take up the case on June 29.
The police had identified Natarajan, Kumar, Murukan and Kuppuswami as suspects from the surveillance cam footage in the church. They caught everyone except Kumar from a village near Dharmapuri. They confessed to the loot and said they bought gold ornaments with the money. Some of those ornaments were seized by the police.
They had broken into the rooms of the vicar and the assistant vicar and the office room of the St Thomas Higher Secondary School.
The court witnessed the dramatic moments when Fr Vayalunkl, assistant vicar Fr Jins Maniyambrayil, church administrator Shaji Kandathinkara and school bus driver Denny were summoned as witnesses in the case.
The head priest informed magistrate A Shanavas through his lawyer that he wanted to pardon the accussed as the Pope had marked this year as the holy year of mercy. He then met with Murukan and Kuppusami in a room near the court. Natarajan was not produced before the court on Wednesday.