A Catholic priest in Chhattisgarh’s Sarguja district has accused 14 people including a local bishop of abducting him for “exposing” alleged fraudulent sale of church land in the locality, the police said on Saturday.
According to the police, Father Suman Xaxa of Ambikapur diocese of Ambakpur in the district reportedly surfaced in the locality on November 30 after a gap of 14 months with unruly beard, soiled clothes and miserable health conditions.
He was admitted to the nearby hospital, where he took almost a week to recover partially.
The church leader on Friday lodged a complaint with Gandhi Nagar police station accusing the local Jesuit Bishop Patras Minj and 13 others, including some of his associates, of kidnapping him on September 14 last year and forcing him into illegal confinement in a cave in a forest near kusmi village close to Jharkhand border. He claimed that he somehow managed to escape from his captors on November 30.
“Basing on the complaint lodged by Father Xaxa, we have registered a case against the Bishop Patras Minj, Ambikapur tehsildar J.N.Sharma, Sarguja divisional deputy commissioner G.Kindo, Xavier Ekka, Gyanbhusan Topo, Renias Bada, Francis Kerketta , Ajlus Kashyap and six others under sections 365, 346, 506, and 120 of Indian Penal Code), investigating officer J.Singh said on Saturday.
According to the police, some people sold one acre of land belonging to Nani Ashram, a prayer centre at Sargaon on the outskirt of Ambikapur town, allegedly using forged papers.
The police had virtually closed the case after Father Xaxa, the main petitioner, went missing on September 24, 2009.
The church leader’s family members lodged a missing report with the Gandhi Nagar police station the same day.