A Catholic nun was arrested in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu after a 17-year-old girl died by suicide.
The girl took poison January 9 at her hostel at Michaelpatti in Thanjavur district, and died 10 days later.
Sister Sahaya Mary, the 62-year-old hostel warden, was arrested under the Juvenile Act apart from charges of abetting suicide. The place is near Poondi Madha shrine that comes under the diocese of Kumbakonam.
A report in ndtv.com says the girl took poison alleging abuse by her hostel warden and an attempt to convert her family to Christianity.
“In an unverified video that has surfaced after her death, the girl says she may have been harassed and abused because her family refused to convert to Christianity,” the report says.
The ndtv.com report says the news organization could not independently verify the video that surfaced after the girl’s death. Jesuit Father Arockiasamy Santhanam, spokesperson for the National Lawyers Forum of Religious and Priests, says the First Information Report does not mention conversion. “It is the cook up story by the Hindutva elements,” he told on January 21.
According to him, the police had gone to the hospital to collect the girl’s statement.
The priest also explained that the girl had lost her mother eight years ago and her father married another woman.