Two Indian priests have been accused of being among four clergymen who raped a woman in South India.
The 34-year-old woman was allegedly raped and blackmailed in Kerala in India. She told one priest about previous sexual abuse she had faced and he allegedly pressurised her into sexual acts in exchange for not telling anyone what she had told him.
She said she was then raped by two other priests who she turned to for help.
Fr Job Matthews handed himself in to police on Thursday, the priest she said she originally told, and Fr Johnson Mathew was arrested on Friday, one of the other four accused.
The priests deny the accusations.
On Wednesday, Kerala High Court dismissed any future option of bail to any of the priests.
The police have intensified the search for the other two priests, Fr Abraham Vargheese and Fr Jaise K George.
The woman’s husband spoke on New Delhi television on Thursday and said: “Even after we got married in 2006, the priest continued to sexually abuse my wife, blackmail her, saying that he would tell me everything. I got to know all this only in February.”
According to Associated Press, her husband told reporters he found out about the abuse in February this year when he noticed a bank statement which included a hotel transaction in his wife’s email inbox.
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