By Matters India Reporter
Cuttack, Aug 17, 2023: A Catholic nun, who survived gangrape, has gone back to a court to give evidence after a gap of nine years.
The nun, who cannot be named because of legal reasons, appeared before the district and sessions judge court in Cuttack on August 16 and 17 to give evidence against 18 accused in the case.
However, her evidence could not be recorded as the Odisha government had not yet appointed a lawyer for her.
The court is expected to fix another date for recording her statements after the government appoints the lawyer.
The nun was 25 when she was gang-raped on August 25, 2008, after a mob ransacked and attacked Divya Jyoti (Divine Light) Pastoral Centre, one of the torched church institutions, where she served as a social worker. She had taken her final vows only a few months before.
The violence began August 24, 2008, a day after the murder of Hindu religious leader Laxmanananda Saraswati, and lasted four more months. The mayhem claimed more than 100 lives and reduced 395 churches and other places of worship to ashes. Nearly 56,000 people ended up displaced and destitute.
The state crime branch police had arrested and chargesheeted nine people in the nun’s rape case on the basis of a First Information Report registered in the K Nuagaon police station. It had filed three chargesheets separately accusing a total of 30 people in the case.
After nearly six years of trial, nine of the accused were convicted by the sessions court in March 2014, including the prime accused Mitu Patnaik. Six others were acquitted.
While Patnaik was convicted for the rape and sentenced to 11 years rigorous imprisonment, two others – Gajendra Digal and Saroj Badhei — were found guilty of outraging the victim’s modesty, obscene act and criminal intimidation and were sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment.
Salute the courage of this young woman. May the Lord give her strength. But shocking to learn that she is fighting her case alone. Where are all those priests who blah blah about their “prophetic role”. And where are those bishops who recently issued a grandiose statement about “inclusiveness “? Stand up and be counted, if not now, then when?