Funeral mass held for priest

A funeral mass was held on Tuesday for K.J Thomas, rector at the St. Peter’s Pontifical Seminary in Malleswaram, where he was found murdered on Monday.

Fr. Thomas’s relatives Joseph Matthew, Baby Chacko and his sister Jacqueline, a nun from Puducherry, attended the mass along with five bishops from the Ooty, Salem and Mysore dioceses. The body of the 65-year-old priest was then shifted to Ooty and thence to Kottayam, said the police. The funeral is expected to take place in his native Kerala on Friday.

Archbishop Bernard Moras, who spoke at the beginning of the mass, told

The Hindu Fr. Thomas also studied in the Bangalore seminary before coming back to teach. The Archbishop did not want to comment on the murder until the police inquiry was completed.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) S.N. Siddharamappa said: “The post-mortem report indicates that the rector died due to head injuries mostly caused by a blunt object. There were no stab injuries.”

He added there are no leads yet. The police also continued the interrogation of the procurator Fr. Patrick Xavier and the security guard Mansingh who were at the seminary when the murder took place. The guard has claimed he was not aware of any intruder.