The news of sexual adventures and arrest of Kanyakumari based 30-year- old Fr Benedict Anto and a few more are still fresh in the memory of the locals, yet another preacher in Tenkasi District with more or less the same pattern of sexual assaults on Christian women who attend church prayers came to light.
Stanley Kumar is a preacher at North Sivakamipuram church in Magizhvanna Nathapuram near Alankulam in Tenkasi district. Police have arrested him for sexually abusing women.
A woman in her complaint said, “Stanley Kumar would ask for mobile numbers of women who come to church for mass or prayers. Later he would call them over the phone and engage in a sex-related obscene speech. No double entendre, only straight talks with amorous intentions. He slowly asks them to have physical relations with him. When I took my 30-year-old daughter was suffering from stomach to church, on the pretext of treatment, he started caressing her waist portion and tried to make sexual advances. He threatened us not to reveal this to anyone outside the church.
Fearing consequences, we kept quiet. But he took pictures of a girl from another village while she was bathing and compelled her to sleep with him. The woman made a complaint to the Pavoorchatram police station. We know this and his calls to other women to share a bed with him to have a sexual relationship”.
It is reliably learnt that he has fitted mobile CCTV cameras with an audio recording facility on the church premises. He would take snapshots to create morphed photos and videos to blackmail women laities. A complainant said, “They have come to know this by talking with other affected women. We asked the police to take stern action against him”?
The congregation members have filed a complaint with the District Superintendent of Police, saying he misbehaved with women who attended the church prayers or came to give confessions. Based on the complaint, pastor Stanley Kumar has been arrested by the Tenkasi Police.
It is worth noting that he also belongs to Thadikkaran Konam of the Kanyakumari district, where another sexual predator Benedict Anto hails.
DSP Sahaya Jose ordered the concerned police station to register FIR and proceed legally. Inspector Sudanthira Devi investigated the people who lodged complaints. Police also collected electronic mode of evidence to ensure the genuineness of the objection. The police arrested Stanley Kumar and brought him to the station, where he was subjected to intense grilling. During the questioning, he admitted to having given sexual torture to women who came to church. Further probe is on.
Nearly a day after 30-year-old Syro Malankara Catholic Church priest Fr Benedict Anto, who had been on the run in connection with sexual assault and harassment of women in Kanyakumari District, was on March 20 arrested by the special team at a farmhouse in Nagercoil where he was hiding. He is accused of sexually abusing and filming numerous Christian women who attend church.
Details pouring from local journalists reveal, “Benedict Anto, with his gift of gab, easily lures the young and attractive beauties. His proficiency in Tamil, English and Malayalam with a native accent gives him the advantage of initiating sweet talks with good morning and good evening after getting their mobile numbers to start his relations with what’s an app message. Slowly he would gain a place in their heart with his talks and started trapping them in his sex net. Poor women thought a priest who serves god come and talk to them without any inhibition or bias.
People believe and treat him as a representative of Jesus. Not only nubile, young women and newly married easily fell to his sweet talks and lost their personal lives. According to the police, 80 or more women have become victims of his lewd activities. After gaining confidence, he would tell a woman that he loved her only by heart and ask her to show her private parts or pictures or to share them on his mobile. There are allegations that he had shared the women with other influential persons by blackmailing them with videos. If any woman questioned his double entendre or sexy talks, he would say, “I am father only at the church premises, and I am here, you lover. He would ask them to come to his place and exploit them sexually after recording their intimate relations. It would be used to blackmail or to do his pervert desires. He has more than 200 videos. He did not leave minor girls.
Political analyst Bala Gautham said, “many think the priesthood is a licence to prey on the innocent people who come to pray at church or the nuns posted there and exploit them for their sexual needs. It has been going on for centuries. Thanks to the ‘me too’ movement’ and incidents like Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused of raping a Kerala nun, the mysterious death of nuns and other incidents, women are bold enough to come out in the open to expose such wolves in holy cow grab.
According to News Minute (2020), “From 1987, bodies of about 20 nuns have been found in wells in various convents in Kerala, including Sister Abhaya’s in 1992. In all these cases, neither the convent authorities nor the diocese nor the Kerala Catholic Church has lodged an FIR or investigated to find out the reason for the deaths. But after every incident, they conducted a burial and issued a press statement saying, “Normal Death”.
But in Tamil Nadu, there is no death of that sort. But now women have come forward to give complaints against predators boldly with support from Hindu outfits.
