Thiruvalla: On the morning of May 7, Divya P. John, a 21-year-old novice with the Basilian Sisters near here, attended class as usual, a church spokesman says. But an hour later, around noon, her body was found in a well at the convent. Rescuers retrieved the body and bypassed a nearby public hospital to transport it to a diocesan hospital farther away.

A subsequent autopsy found the cause of death to be drowning, but no time of death was given. Church officials did not seek a police crime scene investigation into the mystery of how she died, labeling the tragedy a probable suicide.

John’s untimely death is the latest in close to 20 others since 1987 involving novices and sisters serving in Catholic communities in Kerala state in southern India.

The most notable was the murder of Sister Abhaya, whose body was found in 1992 at the bottom of her convent’s well in Kottayam. Originally dismissed as a suicide, that case took a turn in 2008 after a criminal investigation deemed her death was a murder. Now, almost three decades after Abhaya’s death, a priest and nun charged with her murder are undergoing a trial that only began in August 2019.

Catholic groups have recently asked church authorities to take steps to dispel a growing mistrust in society regarding religious life and the deaths of John and other sisters.

“It is high time that the leadership of Conference of Religious India woke to this situation and put in place procedures and practical guidelines to prevent such deaths from taking place,” Sisters in Solidarity, a group of Catholic nuns and laywomen who formed last year over concern about the issue, wrote to the religious major superiors in India in June.

The letter, which a GSR reporter viewed in electronic form, said that John’s death in Kerala, a Christian stronghold, was “shrouded in mystery.” Many questions remain unanswered weeks after her death, notes the group’s June 18 letter, which asks the major superiors to conduct an independent probe to help unravel the mystery.

The letter was signed by eight nuns, seven laywomen and two women’s groups and was endorsed by 95 priests and nuns.

While the letter signers and other Catholics are frustrated by the lack of investigation in many of these cases, the church’s official stance has been to close them as probable suicides or accidents and keep the details private. Though the church has suggested many of the deaths are suicides attributed to depression, little has been done formally to address such a phenomenon within congregations.

In light of the ultimate murder determination in the high-profile Sister Abhaya case, this latest tragic death has cast a spotlight on similar cases that as yet have no real closure.

The Conference of Religious India is the national association of Catholic nuns, priests and brothers throughout India. According to the Conference of Religious website, the conference embodies 1,023 superiors general and provincials of 402 religious congregations. The total number of religious in India is more than 131,500. Women form the largest component with 104,500 members in 295 congregations.

Kerala, where almost all of the unnatural deaths of nuns have occurred, is home to nearly 35,000 women religious, about a third of all Catholic sisters in India.

Sr. Julie George, a Solidarity member and lawyer based in the western Indian city of Mumbai, told GSR by phone that the nuns’ deaths under mysterious circumstances have sent the wrong message to society.

“Our image is tarnished before the public and our mission is questioned,” bemoans George, a member of the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit.

The Solidarity group wrote to the religious superiors after its June 1 letter to Cardinal Baselios Mar Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malankara Church, failed to get a response. The group urged the cardinal to investigate John’s death independently, as the convent falls under his Oriental Catholic rite.

“We are deeply concerned about the increasing [number of] unnatural deaths taking place in convents, the latest one being under your jurisdiction in Kerala,” the letter alerts the cardinal. The group sees “an alarming statistic” in so many nuns allegedly committing suicide over three decades, as the official church often cites as the cause in its responses on individual cases.

The group also points out that John had spent five years with the Basilian Sisters, a 99-year-old Italian congregation that works in India under the Syro-Malankara Church. Her congregation should have detected her suicidal tendencies during this period and taken appropriate steps, the critics contend.

Cause of death debated

The congregation and the Malankara church told GSR that the novice committed suicide. The state police crime branch will not release a statement until it completes the probe and submits its report. John’s family members have declined to comment.

Fr. Santhosh Azhakath, public relations officer of the Tiruvalla Syro-Malankara Archeparchy, denies foul play in the novice’s death, as the letter signers and activists suggest. “We have nothing to hide, as is being projected in media,” the priest said in an interview.

He says the novice was in class until 11 a.m., and her body was found in the well soon after. But he does not confirm the time of death.

Neither does the initial autopsy report, which prompted Jomon Puthenpurackal, a lay leader and activist in the Sister Abhaya case, to suspect it was a murder. Even now, months later, the real time of John’s death has not been disclosed, and a complete autopsy report has not been released.

Convent authorities took John’s body to a diocesan hospital, bypassing a closer public hospital, where the autopsy was not done until the next day — all details Puthenpurackal says are suspicious.

Azhakath said he regrets that some people with “vested interests” are using “the sad death” to target the church.

When called for comment, Sr. Maria Agna, the superior of the Basilian convent, told GSR, “I have nothing to say about it as the case is already being investigated by the police.” She then disconnected the call.

Puthenpurackal told GSR over the phone that he had demanded a probe by the police’s crime branch team after the local police allegedly tried to treat John’s death as a suicide “in a preplanned manner under someone else’s instructions,” he said, implying those of church officials.

The crime branch team’s preliminary report found no foul play in John’s death, but that determination was rejected by the team’s boss, Additional Director General of Police Tomin J. Thachankary, who on May 21 ordered a fresh investigation. No report has been issued.

Timeline, autopsy questioned

Shaiju Antony, a Catholic lay leader and joint convener of the Save Our Sisters movement, also suspects foul play in John’s death. He says, based on church and police sources, John’s body was taken to a diocesan hospital under the instruction of the Malankara church for almost a day before being transferred to a government hospital, where the autopsy was conducted the next day, raising doubts over its results.

To dispel such misgivings, the church should investigate the case “in a transparent and ethical manner” to find the truth, the Sisters in Solidarity urge Cleemis in its June 1 letter. Relaying a message through his staff to GSR on Sept 22, Cleemis declined to confirm receipt of the letter or comment on its contents.

In its June 18 letter, the group warns the major superiors that their “indifference or silence out of fear in such situations would make us accomplices in the crime.”

The most publicized and sensational case was the death of Sister Abhaya, a member of St. Joseph’s Congregation whose body was found in the convent well in Kottayam on March 27, 1992. It became the longest running murder investigation in Kerala. Police initially closed it as a suicide case in 1993.

After Puthenpurackal and his action council protested, the case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, a federal agency that eventually suspected two priests and a sister were responsible for the murder. They were arrested in 2008. A court acquitted one priest in 2018 and the trial of the other two suspects began Aug. 26, 2019. The closing of courts during the pandemic has interrupted the trial’s progress in 2020.

In earlier action, the court rejected several witnesses, including sisters, when their testimony differed from their original statements 27 years ago. Others were too ill to testify or have died.

For the rest of the story please read Global Sisters Report’s September 24, 2020, issue.