Sanju’s friends used to visit nuns at Notorious St Pious Convent for Immoral acts

CBI presents key witness in Abhaya case

Pioneer News Service | Kochi

The
CBI team probing the Sr Abhaya murder case has reportedly found a very
important witness who could lead the 16-year-old case to a logical
conclusion. The CBI presented him before the Judicial Magistrate Court
Class II on Monday afternoon. The witness, who was said to have seen
the activities at the St Pius X Convent on the night of Sr Abahaya’s
murder, deposed before the court but CBI officials refused to confirm
or deny the reports.

The CBI team had brought the witness to the
court under tight security, overseen by probe team head DySP K
Nandakumar Nair. The witness was made to depose directly to the court
to avoid change of statement later. Indications are that this witness
was there in the convent on the March 27, 1992, the day of the murder
of Sr Abhaya at the convent.

According to sources, the witness
had told the court that the first effort was to dump Sr Abhaya’s body
from an upper floor downwards. The witness said that the body of the
nun was thrown into the well in the convent after this effort had
failed. Sources said that the deposition was about 150-minutes-long.
The court premises had been kept under heavy security cover when the
witness was brought there for deposition.

Sanju P Mathew, a
person residing in the house next to the convent in Kottayam, had given
the most clinching statements to the CBI in the case. He had told the
agency officials that he had seen the two-wheeler of Fr Thomas M
Kottoor, Chancellor of the Kottayam diocese of the Knanaya Catholic
Church, on the night of Sr Abhaya’s murder.

It was mainly on
the basis of the statements from Sanju that the CBI had arrested Fr
Kottoor, who was a teacher at BCM College, Kottayam where Sr Abhaya had
been a student by the time of the murder, Fr Jose Puthrukayil and Sr
Seffi, a nun of the same convent of Sr Abhaya, as first, second and
third accused respectively.

The remand of the three Church
personalities in CBI custody was to end on Tuesday. Sources in the CBI
said the agency might request the court not to grant them bail but to
keep them in judicial remand.

There were reports earlier that
the CBI had found a very important witness, who was a friend of Sanju P
Mathew. This friend of Sanju had reportedly been in the convent on the
night of the incident and had seen with his won eyes the incidents at
St Pius X Convent on the night of the murder of the nun. Sanju had told
the CBI that several immoral acts had been taking place in the convent
and that his own friends used to visit certain nuns there.

This
friend of Sanju had been in Gulf for the past many years and had come
home recently. Reports had said that the CBI had, through proper
channel, asked him to appear before the investigators for questioning.

Meanwhile,
the Kerala High Court asked the CBI to submit its affidavit on the
allegation raised in a petition by 18 nuns of the Knanaya Church’s St
Joseph’s Convent, Kottayam, and an inmate of the St Pius X Convent that
the investigating agency had been persecuting them by calling them to
several places in the name of questioning, The nuns and the convent
inmate alleged that the CBI had been acting in a humiliating manner
towards them.

The CBI counsel rejected the charge and said the
agency had never adopted any such method in any case. However, the High
Court asked the agency to submit the explanation in writing.

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