ICC Note:
Two recent rape acquittals in India’s Chhattisgarh state have exposed the hostility against the Church. In the first acquittal, two individuals were acquitted after being accused of gang raping a nun. Many local church leaders condemned the acquittal, claiming the police did not do a proper investigation or gather proper evidence. In the second acquittal, a local priest and two other Christian worker were acquitted of rape charges the court found to be “fabricated”. False accusations of crimes against church leaders in India is a common tool Hindu radicals use to persecute and disrupt Christian communities. Will the Church in Chhattisgarh continue to face increasing hostility? 
01/24/2017 India (National Catholic Register) – Two acquittals in rape cases have exposed the hostility the Church has to live with in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh, which is ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The first acquittal came on Jan. 3 in the 2015 gang-rape of a nun in her convent medical center in Raipur, the capital of Chattisgarh state. Then, on Jan. 9, a Catholic priest, a nun and a hostel attendant at a Church school in the Koriya district of the Ambikapur Diocese were acquitted on Jan. 9 in what a judge concluded was a fabricated rape case. And according to Christian leaders, the charges against the Catholics in the school case were “fabricated” as direct retribution for the public complaints by church leaders that local law enforcement officials were not effectively investigating the earlier rape of the nun.
“This is a terrible case. Our innocent priest and hostel assistant had to spend 16 months in jail,” Bishop Patras Minj of Ambikapur, Chattisgarh, told the Register on January 17.
“We are relieved now,” said Bishop Minj about the acquittal of Father Joseph Dhanaswami, Sister Christo Maria and Philomina Kerketta of Jyoti Mission School in Sarbhoka village. The trio had been arrested on Sept. 11, 2015, with the priest accused of raping a 10-year-old girl at the hostel, while the nun and the hostel attendant were accused of abetting the alleged rape.
Though the nun was released on bail after two weeks, the female hostel attendant remained in jail along with the priest until the trial court acquitted all of the accused. The judge pointed out that the alleged victim did not even identify the accused priest during the trial — reinforcing the innocence of the accused.
Bishop Minj said the case was “politically motivated to tarnish the image of the Church. It was vindictive action against our protest in the nun’s shocking gang-rape [in Raipur].”
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