By Matters India Reporter
Ranchi, May 8, 2019: A court in Jharkhand state’s Khunti district has found a Jesuit priest and five others guilty in a gang rape case.
Judge Rajesh Kumar of the additional district court in Khunti on May 7 convicted Father Alphonse Aind under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
The development came a day after Khunti went to the polls to elect its representative in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
Father Aind, 48, was the parish priest of Sacred Heart Church and in-charge of Stockmann Memorial Middle School at Burudih in Kochang, some 100 km south of Ranchi, the state capital.
The case is about the abduction and gang rape of five women on June 19, 2018.
The rape survivors, all tribals, had visited the school on that day to stage a play against human trafficking when six men on motorcycles allegedly took them forcibly to a forest about 7-8 km away and gangraped them at gunpoint.
Police on June 21 first took into custody Father Aind, two nuns who brought the team to Kochang, and two teachers for interrogation. They were released a day later, but the priest was arrested on June 23 for abetment of the crime.
He was sent to judicial custody, but on March 12 the Jharkhand High Court released him on bail.
Kochang was the epicentre of the Pathalgarhi movement in Jharkhand that encouraged tribals to assert their traditional and constitutional rights.
The Khunti court convicted five more persons were also convicted in the case. John Jonas and Balram Samad have been convicted under sections related to conspiracy and abetment. Junas Munda, Ayub Purti and Baji Samad, who were the main accused, were also convicted various sections.
The argument on point of sentencing has been fixed for May 15.
Public prosecutor Sushil Kumar Jaiswal said the court was convinced about Father Aind’s involvement in the rape conspiracy.
“Even though he had a mobile phone, he did not inform anyone, including the police, that the women had been kidnapped. He took no action after the survivors were brought back after being raped. The evidence produced by us in the court convinced the court,” he said.
He added that two other accused, Balram Samad and John Jonas Tiru, were angry with one of the survivors who ran an the anti-Pathhlagarhi campaign in the village.
Church officials maintain that all charges against the Jesuit priest are fabricated amid a hostile atmosphere against Christians since 2014 when the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Jharkhand.
A trial court in Khunti district rejected Father Aind’s bail application on September 10 because the priest was allegedly associated with one of the main accused in the case and failed to stop the gang from abducting the women.
A lawyer for the priest, Jasminder Majumdar, told the court that the court statements of the alleged victims in the gang rape case have “glaring contradictions” which prove the priest has been falsely implicated.
They also attacked some men, who were part of the street play team, and abducted at least two of them. Police claim the men were left on the edges of the forest before the alleged rapists moved inside the forest and raped the women.
The survivors were members of an 11-member team from “Asha Kiran” (ray of hope), a rehabilitation center managed by Ursuline Sisters at Fudi, 20 km south of Ranchi. They came to Kochang to state the street play Father Aind’s invitation.
Father Aind, who joined the Ranchi province of the Society of Jesus in 1992, was ordained a priest in 2007.