‘Nun rape case convicts don’t deserve mercy’

Students of Convent of Jesus and Mary School participate in a protest against the gang rape of a nun in her 70s by a group of bandits when she tried to prevent them from robbing the Christian missionary school in Begopara, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, Saturday, March 14, 2015. The nun was hospitalized in serious condition after the attack, which was committed by seven or eight men. The woman who was attacked is either 71 or 72 and is the oldest nun at the school, a police officer said. (AP Photo/Pranab Debnath)

Six convicts sentenced to varying jail terms in a rape-and-dacoity case did not deserve any mercy, Kolkata Sessions Court judge said on Wednesday, pronouncing the quantum of punishment. They committed the heinous crime of vandalising a place of worship and committing sexual atrocities on an aged nun at the Jesus and Mary Convent at Ranaghat in Nadia district in 2015, the court said. Quoting from Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant , the judge said Jesus Christ, in the guise of a child, had told the giant that these were the wounds of love, when asked about nail- inflicted wounds on his palm and feet.

“But in this case, these are not the wounds of love and the convicts do not deserve mercy,” judge Kumkum Sinha said while sentencing the six convicts, including the one who raped the 72-year old nun.

(With agency input)