Kolkata: The 71-year-old nun from a convent school in West Bengals Nadia district, who was gang-raped by a gang of men late on Friday, 13 March, is now recovering after surgery at the Ranaghat hospital. Calm and sober unlike the rest of the Christian community in India and across the world, enraged by the brutal assault on the septuagenarian, she admits that Dil mein dard hai (My heart is broken).
Yet to everyones surprise she is praying that the men who harmed her be forgiven. The Archbishop of Kolkata, Thomas DSouza has said he expects thousands to join a solidarity rally led by priests in Kolkata later on Monday, 16 March. Meanwhile, despite there being CCTV footage identifying them, none of the suspects behind the ghastly crime have been arrested yet.
Police say they have not been able to establish the identities of the attackers either. Nadia SP Arnab Ghosh said they had detained eight persons and were interrogating them. Photographs of the suspects have been sent to BSF outposts near the border too in order to ensure they dont escape.
Around 12 armed men had raided the Christian missionary school in the intervening hours of late Friday and early Saturday- in an attack that is reported to have lasted over three hours, from 1:30 am to about 5 am. According to sources, the gang first ransacked the school office before breaking into the convent. Two others were with the 71-year-old nun when the miscreants broke into the convent. They had attacked the three, pushed them from one room to another before tying up two and the security man to a chair in a room and locked the door from outside. Then they gang-raped the nun in another room.
Besides cash from the school coffer, the miscreants looted the sisters’ laptops, mobile phones and other belongings, ransacked their rooms and rummaged through their cupboards and bags. Before leaving, the miscreants desecrated the chapel at the convent.
A convent official said, That leads me to believe that it is not a mere dacoity. It is an attack on the religion. They assaulted a consecrated woman who devoted her life to service and desecrated the church. It has hurt the Christian community deeply.