Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, March 28, 2024: A top court in a central Indian state on March 28 granted bail to a Catholic nun accusing of abetting the suicide of a school girl.
The Bilaspur high court, the top court in Chhattisgarh state, granted bail to Carmelite Sister Mercy, 51 days after she was remanded in judicial custody.
Police arrested her on February 7 following the suicide of a minor girl studying in her congregation run school in Ambikapur, a major township in Sarguja district in the state.
“We are very happy that the high court has granted bail to our sister,” said Sister Beena Therese, provincial of the embattled nun soon after the court order.
Earlier, the nun had tried to obtain bail from a local court in Ambikapur, but failed and thus, she moved the high court for her release.
“I do not know how will I express my happiness. We all of us in the congregation are very happy,” Sister Therese, provincial of the congregation’s Carmel Matha province of Hazaribagh, told Matters India.
“Sister Mercy is still in the prison. She will be released in a day or two after completing the legal formalities as per the order of the top court,” the provincial said.
Sister Mercy was arrested after the suicide of a sixth grader of Carmel School in Ambikapur on February 6 night. The nun teaches in the school.
The nun was charged with abetting suicide, a crime punishable with 10 years of jail or life imprisonment.
The student, who committed suicide by hanging from a ceiling fan in her home, accused the nun of torturing her in a suicide note recovered by the police.
The nun had taken the identity cards of four girls including the one who committed suicide after seeing them roaming around the toilet areas without attending the class.
The nun then submitted the cards in the office and asked them to come with their parents in the school next day. She was not even teaching them but still she was arrested based on the suicide note.
The rightwing Hindu activists also had staged protests in front of the school, demanding the arrest of the nun and her principal, but police did not arrest the principal who is also a nun.
The state, ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party, is among states where Christians face increased persecution.
Chhattisgarh recorded 47 incidents of attacks against Christians from January 1 to March 15, this year, the highest in any Indian state during this period,reported United Christian Forum, an ecumenical body.
Christians, according to the report suffered various forms of violence such as social ostracization and violent assaults. They were also restrained from collecting water from common water sources and burying their dead as per their religious rituals among other things.
Christians make up a mere 2 percent of Chhattisgarh’s more than 30 million population with more than 80 percent Hindus, including the indigenous people, who are grouped under Hinduism under the India’s Census.