Statement of witness recorded

KOTTAYAM

: A crucial meeting that will decide the future course of the probe into the sexual abuse allegation raised against the

Jalandhar bishop Franco Mulakkal

by a Catholic nun, will be held here on Wednesday. The progress of the probe will be assessed at the meeting of the probe team that will be attended by state police chief

Loknath Behera

and

IG Vijay Sakhare

.

A decision on whether the probe team should leave for Jalandhar on Friday to interrogate the accused will be taken at the meeting. If the probe team gets a green signal, then the Punjab Police will be intimated about the arrival of the Kerala Police team by Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the head of the probe team, Vaikom DSP K Subhash, took the statement of the nun, a key witness in the case, whom a priest of another congregation had contacted over phone and tried to influence. The audio clip of the conversation had gone viral on social media.

The Kuravilangad police had earlier registered a case against Fr James Erthayil of the Congregation of Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), an indigenous religious congregation in the Catholic Church of India, after an audio clip of his conversation with the nun, who is a colleague of the complainant nun, surfaced.

In the audio clip, Erthayil, who was serving in a monastery at Kurianad in the district, was heard trying to influence the nun belonging to the Missionaries of Jesus by offering 10 acres and a separate convent, if the complaint against Mulakkal was withdrawn.

Following the incident, the CMI congregation asked the priest to step down from his position as the Prior of the monastery of the church and was removed from the manager post of a church-run school at Kurianad on Monday. An explanation was also sought from him. He was also transferred to an institution of the church in Idukki.