Nun arrested for ’smuggling’ marijuana into prison
Police in Tamil Nadu state have arrested a Catholic nun for allegedly smuggling marijuana into a federal prison. Police say they arrested St. Anne Sister Anastasia, 63, on May 14 after finding 18 grams of marijuana in her handbag when she entered the prison in Madurai, a temple city. The nun, who has been active in prison ministry, said she was taking a packet to a prisoner suffering from AIDS. She explained that an old woman claiming to be the man’s mother gave her the sealed packet and said it contained medicine.
Police say they found marijuana, two mobile phone SIM cards and letters. They did not accept the nun’s explanation and filed a case against her. After presenting Sister Anastasia before the local court, the police released her on bail. According to applicable laws, anyone convicted of smuggling one kilogram of marijuana or less faces up to six months in jail. Church people in the southern state regret what happened. “This incident is unfortunate and can tarnish the image of the Catholic community in the state,” Archbishop Peter Fernando of Madurai, chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council (TNBC), told UCA News on May 16.
TNBC spokesperson Father Vincent Chinnadurai says the nun acted imprudently and put her congregation as well as the Tamil Nadu Church “in a difficult position.” He said the way the incident occurred makes the church suspect it was a setup to trap the nun and others who support her work. The state government recently permitted prison ministry members to visit prisons, but only after much deliberation. Father Vincent Xavier, who coordinates prison ministry in the state, says the incident will make their work more difficult and permission for future visits harder to come by.
“Working in prison ministry is very difficult and those who (do) need to be extra careful,” Father Xavier told UCA News. Nearly 200 people are involved in prison ministry in Tamil Nadu, where approximately 20,000 prisoners are detained in state prisons. Some 75 percent of them are under trial. Sister Anastasia began work in the prisons after retiring from teaching 10 years ago, her provincial superior, Sister Elsy, told UCA News on May 17. Ten nuns from the congregation are working full-time in prison ministry. The superior said the incident has saddened them, but “we will continue our work in prison ministry despite this setback.”
This is the second time the police in Tamil Nadu arrested a Catholic nun for alleged illegal activities. In 2001, Servite Sister Vanaselvi was arrested for criminal conspiracy after the police found her carrying pamphlets hailing Koose Muniswamy Gauder, an outlaw popularly known as Veerappan. Sister Vanaselvi was acquitted of all charges and later left her congregation.
Veerappan was accused of killing more than 125 people over two decades while hiding in and plundering forests. A special police team killed him in 2005. Source: UCANews
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