Kerala Police team meets nuns in Jalandhar
Jalandhar, Aug 11: Even though it failed to meet the bishop accused of sexually abusing a senior nun, a team of the Kerala Police met some nuns in Punjab's Jalandhar district on Saturday.
The Kerala Police team, which was given protection by their Punjab counterpart, arrived at the congregation of Missionaries of Jesus, the headquarters of Christian centres in the region, for investigation.
The team met some former nuns of the Jalandhar diocese on Friday and Saturday.
Police sources said the Kerala team is expected to meet and question Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar on Sunday.
The Kerala Police team arrived in Punjab's Jalandhar city, around 155 km from Chandigarh, on Friday, but failed to meet the controversial bishop, who is accused of sexually abusing a nun.
The Punjab Police, fearing law and order trouble, provided protection to the Kerala team.
Several followers of the diocese gathered at its campus in Jalandhar on Friday after hearing about the arrival of the six-member Kerala police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) A.T. Subhash.
A nun had alleged in June that Mulakkal sexually abused her several times at a convent in Kuruvalangadu near Kottayam between 2014 to 2016. An FIR was registered against the bishop and a 114-page detailed statement was taken from the nun and other inmates of the convent.
Mulakkal has denied any wrongdoing. A spokesman for the diocese told media that no wrong had been done by the bishop and that the allegations were being made by the nun at the instigation of vested interests.
Earlier, statements were taken from the head of the Syro-Malabar Church Cardinal Mar George Alencherry and also a few other former nuns who were residents at the convent.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
