By Matters India Reporter
Thiruvananthapuram: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has held a Catholic priest and a nun responsible for the mysterious death of a 12-year-old girl at a Church center in Kerala ten years ago, report some online Malayalam news websites.
The body of Shreya Benny, a seventh grader, was found dead October 17, 2010, in a pond attached to “Accept Kripa Bhavan,” a spirituality center managed by the Changanacherry archdiocese at Kaithavana near Alapuzha town in the southern Indian state.
The CBI had apparently submitted the chargesheet to CBI Chief Judicial Magistrate in Thiruvananthapuram a few days ago, but newsindia.com reported it March 8, the International Women’s Day.
Another Malayalam news portal, eastcoastdaily.com, too reported that the prime suspects in the ten-year-old case are Father Mathew Moonnattinmugham, who was then the director of the Church center, and Sister Sneha Maria, who conducted a personality development program for Sunday School students there.
Both the websites reported that the court would give its order on March 9.
According to the preliminary findings, the girl was attending Sister Maria’s camp from December 15, 2010, staying at a cottage with 10 other girls and a nun. She went missing on the third day of the camp.
The federal agency took over the case after the local police and the crime branch dismissed the death as a case of suicide. Another theory said the girl, who suffered from sleepwalk, had accidentally fallen into the pond at night.
The postmortem report attributed the girl’s death to drowning.
Amid public protests, Oommen Chandy, the then Kerala chief minister, in August 2011 handed over the case to the crime branch led by D Rajagopal.
The crime branch team reportedly re-investigated the case after the girl’s father and his brother bought a lorry and an autorikshaw after the death. “They informed us that they have no complaints and we know they have bought new vehicles. Their behavior has changed suddenly and this warrants a relook,” Rajagopal had told reporters in 2018.
The girl’s mother had taken up a new job in an English medium school in Alappuzha.
Benny, the father, in 2018 told The Times of India that they did not have time to pursue the case and want to close that chapter forever. However, the girl’s sister and her 90-year-old grandfather wanted the culprits to be arrested.
Rajagopal said that during the initial investigations the family had asked the police to find the girl’s killers whatever the cost. “When I visited them later, they wanted us to wind up the investigation at the earliest saying they do not have any interest in pursuing the case,”.
The Kerala High Court in September 2019 ordered the federal agency to take over the case after Kalarcode Venugopalan Nair, a social worker in Kaithavana, filed a petition alleging foul play in the probe. The high court quashed the Crime Branch chargesheet and asked the CBI to take over the probe.
Rajagopal had said that they believed the girl fell into the pond while trying to escape from an official at the center, who tried to misbehave with her in his room on October 16, 2010.
The crime branch wanted a narco-analysis test on the official but but he refused it. “As per the Supreme Court’s May 5, 2010, judgment, the consent of a person should be taken before conducting any brain-mapping or narco test,” the police officer explained.
Nair, the petitioner and a Hindu, told reporters that he approached the High Court after a top police officer, had told him that they were unable to do anything.