By A Reporter
NEW DELHI, December 12, 2019: A Catholic priest was arrested and sent to judicial custody in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on December 11 for alleged forgery and cheating.
Sleuths of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW), a special branch of the Madhya Pradesh police that probes charges of the economic offences, arrested Father Anand Muttungal, the former spokesperson and public relation officer of Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh from his residence.
The priest was later produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, who remanded him to 15-day judicial custody as the probe agency did not seek his custody.
Father Muttungal faces charges such as cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, and forging documents, an police official told Matters India on condition of anonymity.
The case, the official said, was registered against the against the 47-year-old priest October 17 at EOW police station in Bhopal, the state capital, after almost two-years preliminary investigation.
“The priest is the first among eight people named as accused in the case,” the official added.
Earlier reacting to the charges against him, Father Muttungal told Matters India that he was “innocent” and termed the case as a pressure tactic to force him withdraw his case against Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal.
In 2017, the priest had filed a police complaint alleging that the archbishop and two priests had conspired to make him mentally unstable through slow poisoning. The case is still pending before the court.
The forgery case was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged in April 2017 by a group of people led by one G G John against Father Muttungal and others.
The complainants accused a real estate firm – St. Jude Colonizers – of duping money from 377 people after promising them residential plots on the outskirts of Bhopal.
John Cherian is the president of the firm registered in 2009 while Richard D’Silva, Vipin Toppo, Roy John Thatta, Jerry Paul and Saji Thomas are its members. Only Toppo and Thatta are accused in the case.
However, Father Muttungal is not a member of the society, although he is named the main accused in the forgery case. The police’s preliminary findings say the priest, as the archdiocesan PRO, had allegedly conspired with Toppo and Thatta, one of his employees, to dupe the home buyers.
Father Muttungal has accused D’Silva, Paul, (Archbishop) Cornelio and a journalist of trying to blackmail him. He also claimed that he has filed a police complaint against them in the TT Nagar police station.
According to the priest, the four have asked him money to get his name dropped from the EOW case and end media coverage against him.
Courtesy: mattersindia.com