IANS/Kottayam

The church where the Suryanelli sex scandal victim’s family offered prayers has said they were welcome “anytime they wish to come.”
The church rejected allegations by the victim’s mother that they have been told to stay away.
“The Catholic church is for the poor. We will open our church anytime they (the victim’s family) wish to come. The (TV) reports that say otherwise are wrong,” Xavier Mammootil, parish vicar of the St Francis Xavier’s Church, Kurichy, said yesterday.
According to some TV reports, the victim’s mother has alleged that the church authorities have barred their entry into the church.
“The church authorities told us that the case (scandal) is attracting media attention and till everything subsides, we should keep away from the church,” the victim’s mother told a TV news channel here.
The victim does not go to the church, but her parents go there every week.
The scandal took place in Suryanelli, Idukki district, in January 1996, when the then 16-year-old was threatened, abducted and abused by a bus conductor and later confined and sexually assaulted for 45 days by 42 men.
The case was back in the spotlight after the Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the case on January 31 while setting aside the acquittal in 2005 by the Kerala High Court of all but one of the 35 accused convicted by a special court.
The family’s lengthy battle for justice has been a lonely one. Since her case was reported to the police in 1996, the family has moved homes twice because neighbours taunted and insulted them.
The victim claims that among the men who raped her was Congress leader P J Kurien. He was exonerated by the Supreme Court in 2007.
The woman says his political influence helped Kurien, the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, to escape a thorough police enquiry. She has been asking for him to be tried for rape.