No one killed Sister Abhaya (Paper)
- Joel Peter Varghese, Christ University, Bangalore
- January 21, 2021
Content :
The Sister Abhaya murder case has been one of the most contentious cases of Kerala which has finally been resolved with the verdict by the CBI Court after twenty-eight years of the incident. This case was initially labelled as that of suicide. Almost every household discussion and political discourse and even afictionalized movie was about the case. Several Sections of IPC were referred like Section 302, 201, 449. With a lot of attention and pressure on the handling of the case one needs to understand the complacency and the abuse of power. Several questions being raised regarding the political power of the Catholic Church and its influence on the society and other institutions and whether its moral for a person to have sexual relations despite committing oneself to a life of celibacy. The lack of accountability and transparency by the institutions be it the Judiciary, the police and other agencies involved in the case. This paper aims to analyze the case in detail and the socio-political and legal aspects surrounding the case and also understand the need to strengthen and reinforce faith in the institutions of democratic India. The paper aims to introduce the case, the role of the law enforcement agencies, the politics, the church, media and social groups and the key learnings from the case.
