(INDIA)
Indian Express [Noida, India]
April 30, 2022
By Express News Service
Four cases had been registered against Thomas Parekkulam, 35, when he was working as a parish priest in 2017 under the Punalur diocese in Kollam district.
A Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court in Kerala’s Kollam district on Friday sentenced a Catholic priest to 18 years’ imprisonment after he was found guilty of sexually abusing four minor seminarians.
The convicted priest Thomas Parekkulam, 35, belongs to the Catholic congregation Society of St Eugene De Mazendo, based in France. Four cases had been registered against him in 2017 when he was working as a parish priest under the Punalur diocese in Kollam district.
The court of Kollam additional sessions court (Pocso) judge K N Sujith sentenced the priest to five years’ imprisonment each in three cases and in the fourth case he was sentenced to a jail term of three years.
The sentences, according to the verdict, would run consecutively (one after another). The court also ordered the priest, who is a native of Kasaragod, to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
According to the prosecution, Parekkulam had been working as a parish priest under Punalur diocese at the time of the crime. A few seminarians, who were Class 12 students, had been staying with him at a rented house at Kottathala. They had joined the congregation, but pursued higher secondary education in Kollam. Parekkulam had subjected the minor seminarians to sexual abuse at his parsonage over a period of time. The minors had later left the seminary due to the trauma.
The case was registered after one of the boys approached Childline, a government-backed organisation for children in distress.