By: Nidhi Suresh, Indulekha Aravind (Ed.) Published in: The NEWS Minute Date: January 16, 2026 Source: https://www.thenewsminute.com/kerala/i-must-speak-for-myself-will-not-rest-till-i-get-justice-says-sister-ranit-nun-who-accused-bishop-franco-of-rape Almost four years after her appeal in court, state yet to appoint public prosecutor.
After years of isolation and struggle, Sister Ranit recently decided to publicly reveal her identity. “Till now, it was my allies who spoke for me. But now there’s no point in me keeping quiet. I must come out and speak for myself,” said Ranit, a senior Catholic nun living in Kuravilangadu, Kerala. In 2018, she filed a police complaint against Franco Mulakkal, the then bishop of Jalandhar, accusing him of repeatedly raping her between 2014 and 2016. This was the first instance in India of a nun filing a case of rape against a bishop. Through a series of recent interviews, to Asianet News, Mathrubhumi and others, the nun has made it clear that she will fight the case till the end. The convent Ranit lives in is part of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation, which is presided over by the Jalandhar Diocese. Ranit’s first interview with a journalist took place in 2025, when she spoke to The News Minute. At the time, she had not wanted her identity to be disclosed. In those conversations, she described the crippling anxiety she felt on the day of the verdict and the hope she continued to hold on to for justice. It was on January 14, 2022, at exactly 11:02 am, that the verdict was announced. Ranit watched as news channels declared, “Franco Mulakkal kuttavimukthan aanu” — “Franco Mulakkal is acquitted ” “I couldn't believe it. It broke me,” Ranit said. Mulakkal had resigned as Bishop but continues to hold the honorary title of Bishop Emeritus. A few months after the acquittal, Ranit appealed the verdict before the High Court, but though nearly four years have passed , not a single hearing has been scheduled till date. Although the state is required to appoint a public prosecutor in such cases, this too has not happened. On November 12, 2025, after her initial letter raising these issues was rejected by officials, Ranit met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in person and handed him a letter with her concerns and sought his attention to her situation. In the letter, she requested the appointment of a special public prosecutor and emphasized the importance of the verdict in this case to the safety and security of women in general. It is critical that the verdict should help other women in Kerala who are similarly suffering, she wrote. She requested that senior advocate B.G. Harindranath, senior advocate in the Kerala High Court, be appointed as Special Public Prosecutor. The chief minister, she said, read the entire letter and told her that her requests would be taken into consideration. What made Ranit reveal her identity? On December 8, 2025, three years after the judgement acquitting Franco, the Principal District & Sessions Court in Kochi delivered the verdict in the high-profile 2017 actor assault case. Actor Dileep, accused of masterminding the crime, was acquitted, while Pulsar Suni, the hired criminal, was convicted of abduction and gangrape. The survivor later issued a statement expressing her disappointment. “Not every citizen in this country is treated equally before the law,” she said, calling it her painful realization after years of pain, tears, and emotional struggle. For Ranit, the verdict was deeply triggering — particularly because both Dileep and Franco were represented by the same lawyer, Raman Pillai. Like the survivor in the 2017 case, Ranit also faced his relentless cross-examination in court. “There were some questions which entirely broke me,” she had told TNM earlier, recalling how Raman Pillai would repeat the same questions until she cried out in distress. At times, she said, the judge intervened. “He would tell Raman Pillai that there’s a limit to how you can ask.” “I cannot imagine the pain and suffering the actress must have had to go through,” Ranit said, adding, “It is her verdict that has now compelled me to come forward and break my own silence.” Re-victimized by the legal process Before filing a complaint with the police , Ranit made several attempts to reach out to authorities within the Church hierarchy to file an internal complaint, express her grief and ask for relief. “To this, there was mostly no response, no acknowledgement even to the letters sent to the Vatican. And closer home, the response was to shun, shame and silence me,” said Ranit. In 2018, when Ranit decided to file a police complaint, she was supported by five nuns in her convent who became her allies. Today, only two continue to live with her in the 28-room St Francis Mission Home, which stands on six acres of land belonging to the Jalandhar Diocese. Ever since she filed the case, Ranit said that there were very few in the Catholic Church’s leadership who listened to her or supported her, even in private. The relationship between a nun and any member of the clergy, especially a bishop is primarily defined by power. This is central to the legal and moral dimensions <https://www.thenewsminute.com/kerala/against-gods-men-a-nun-a-bishop-and-the-trial-of-indias-catholic-church>of the case and its aftermath. Over the years, the Church has steadily arm-twisted, financially exhausted, and spiritually pressured Ranit and the nuns who stood by her , with the clear intent of forcing them out of nunhood. Since the verdict, the pressure has intensified. Ranit has faced sustained financial deprivation, institutional isolation, and attempts to push her out of the congregation. >From July 2017 to September 2025 she wrote more than thirty-five letters to officials within the Catholic Church, including at least five to senior Vatican authorities. In one letter to Rome, she described her living conditions as “unbearable” and sought urgent intervention. “Should the victims of clergy sexual abuse be victimised further for bringing out these issues instead of covering them up? Shouldn’t a situation like ours, which is exceedingly torturous, demand new ways of resolving it?” she asked. Ranit added that since the public protests that were launched in solidarity against the verdict, “small circles of support have emerged. Not from within the leadership but those in solidarity with my cause. Very few in the leadership have spoken for me in public,” she said. Franco denies his statements to TNM Across several months in 2025, TNM also interviewed Franco Mulakkal, who now lives in a retreat centre in Kottayam district in Kerala where he spends his time conducting prayers and counselling women and children. Referring to himself as a “diamond,” Franco alleged that he has been falsely convicted in the case. He claimed the case was the result of collective jealousy among other clergymen who used Ranit “as a pawn” to disrupt his rapid rise to power. “They made her accuse me of rape, giving her full guarantee that she will win the case. Rape is the best,” he said. His removal, he added, gave other men a chance at the seat in Jalandhar. Franco told TNM that his loudest defenders were the women whose causes he supported during his time in Punjab. “They even went on TV and said, ‘Now let us take for granted that our bishop has such [sexual] needs. For that, he doesn’t need to go to Kerala. We are here,’” he said, doubling over with laughter. During the conversation, he asked, “Should women be allowed to even exist? Tell me, should they?” When pressed, he added, “Well, if AI (artificial intelligence) is developing, and plastic dolls can produce children, then why do we need women? If women are only for sex, you don’t need them.” He paused and added, “But they’re not only for sex, no? There’s also companionship.” Franco also claimed that there is no rape in India. “Rape cannot be reported,” he said. He argued that a “righteous rapist” — his own coinage – will always kill his victim because if she survives to testify, the man “cannot defend himself.” Hence, he said, all rapes reported by women who are alive are “false.” He further described what he called the “finger-position test.” “If only one finger enters the vagina, she is a virgin. Two fingers means she’s having a relationship only with one man, her husband. But used by multiple men — that’s the three-finger position.” When asked about the scientific or legal basis for this, he offered no explanation. Several activists, including members of the Sisters In Solidarity (SIS), a collective founded in 2019 by a group of Catholic women to support Ranit and other survivors, wrote to senior archbishops and bishops expressing their “disgust, shock and dismay” at Franco’s remarks. “The news report has gone viral in India and abroad, and the Faithful are asking: How is this man a priest? What kind of witness is he giving in our country where Christians are such a small minority?” the letter said. It urged the bishops of India to “make a strong, public denouncement of Franco Mulakkal's views” and to have him “stripped of his title as Bishop and this information be publicised.” On September 28, 2025, Franco wrote to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) denying all allegations. He said he had spoken to “a lady journalist who made a request to know the ‘truth’ about my case” and that she later sought to meet him “to meet someone who underwent great suffering.” “It was not an interview,” he wrote. “She wanted to know how I spent my time after my retirement. I told her that I am spending most of my time in prayer.” He alleged that this was not the first time he had been maligned by the media and the Church. Ranit, who continues to live in the convent, said that the pain, extreme isolation, oppression and systemic failure she's had to endure in the last eleven years has now left her feeling determined about one thing — “I have nothing left to lose anymore. I have made a decision. I will go till the Supreme Court. I will not rest until I have got justice,” she said.
