Kochi: Apostolic administrator of Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese Bishop Mar Jacob Manathodath and senior members of the clergy have alleged conspiracy in the arrest of Aditya Valavi, the techie accused of forgery.
The allegation is that an influential group within the clergy prepared a script for the investigating officers to follow.
The church leadership also demanded a judicial probe since the police inquiry is not satisfactory.
“Investigators who are supposed to find out the source of the fake document is now torturing the youngster and compelling him to name a few members of the clergy as conspirators," alleged auxiliary bishop Sebastian Adayanthrath.
"The cops are conspiring against members of the clergy who were at the forefront to expose the land scam. We suspect attempts to sabotage the land deal case using the forgery case.”
Fr Kuriakose Mundadan, pastoral council secretary, said the archdiocese wanted an honest probe to find out if it was fake and will cooperate with it.
"However, the inquiry is not in the right way, and police wanted to trap a few priests for which they made a plot with the assistance of some influential people in the church,” he alleged
Meanwhile, Bishop Manathodath said that the church believes that Mr Valavi had not forged the document and he just took a screenshot of it from the website of the firm where he worked.
“He has been physically and mentally tortured by the police in custody for the last three days. He was forced to state against Fr Tony Kallookaran, vicar of Muringoor Sanjoe Nagar Church,” alleged Zachariah Valavi, his father.
Meanwhile, the church leadership admitted that the bank document had the name of Cardinal Mar George Alencherry and few members of the laity.
