Sister Concilia was remanded in custody for 14 days and her bail has been refused many times, most recently on Oct 30, on the grounds that the investigation of the case and a probe into the activities of her congregation could be hampered if she is released.
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Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court has rejected the latest bail plea of a nun from Missionaries of Charity. She has been accused of selling babies from Nirmal Hriday, a congregation run home for unmarried mothers.
Sister Concilia was arrested from the home on July 4 in Ranchi. The police had also arrested Anima Indwar, an employee at Nirmal Hriday, based on a complaint filed by the Child Welfare Committee’s Ranchi unit chairperson, Rupa Verma. They were accused of selling a baby boy to a childless couple for Rs. 1.2 Lakh.
The congregation and the nun have denied the accusations. Sister Concilia was remanded in custody for 14 days and her bail has been refused many times, most recently on Oct 30, on the grounds that the investigation of the case and a probe into the activities of her congregation could be hampered if she is released, a report by UCAN India said.
“Based on a complaint by the child welfare committee, the police arrested Indwar on July 3. In her statement, Indwar confessed to having taken money from the Uttar Pradesh couple, and said Sister Concilia, the nun supervising the unit of unwed pregnant women at the home, was an accomplice,” Scroll reported.
“Christian groups have accused authorities in the Bharatiya Janata Party-run state of selective media leaks to discredit the Christian community on the basis of what they insist is an isolated incident. They accuse the child welfare committee of “vindictiveness” and acting on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party-run state government as it shut down the Missionaries of Charity’s other children’s home in Ranchi, Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, even though there were no allegations of impropriety against it. The Bhavan used to home 22 children, all of less than two years of age. The infants have now been shifted to different shelter homes across the state,” another report said in July.
On Oct 29, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi Monday asked child-care homes run by the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) to “come back into” the government’s system of adoption services.
“In 2015, an ideological row erupted between the ministry and the Mother Teresa-founded organisation over issues such as the MoC’s denial to give children to separated or divorced parents. Following this, the Missionaries of Charity decided to stop putting children up for adoption under the government’s Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) system,” reported The New Indian Express.
The Missionaries of Charity are Roman Catholic order founded by Mother Teresa in India. It is a global enterprise with 5,000 nuns in over 770 houses, 243 of them in India. It runs homes for the destitute and dying as well as orphanages and shelter homes for unmarried mothers.