IANS

Kottayam, Aug 16: Two nuns and a priest here were on Thursday taken to Bangalore by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to undergo truth serum tests in connection with the mysterious death of a nun, Sister Abhaya, in 1992.

The CBI team had earlier got permission from Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate PD Sarangadharan to conduct the tests on Father Jose Putarika - a former Malayalam professor at the college where Abhaya studied - and two nuns who were inmates of Abhaya's convent.

Abhaya, an inmate of Pious X hostel near here, was found dead in the well of the convent March 27, 1992. The CBI concluded in November 1996 that the death was a homicide but the murderer remained untraced.

Thomas Kottor, the Diocesan chancellor of the Catholic Church here, was subjected to the truth serum test last month. Kottor was a professor of psychology in Abhaya's college.

VV Augustine, a former police official, also underwent the test along with Kottor.

The decision to conducts tests on Father Putarika and the two nuns was taken after the CBI claimed it got crucial information from the tests done on Kottor and Augustine.

Three former CBI teams have failed to crack the mystery behind Abhaya's death. The Kerala Police had earlier dismissed the case as suicide.

A new team was appointed in June after Joe Mon Puthenpurackal, a social activist who formed the Abhaya Action Committee in 1992, met the CBI director in May and demanded a fresh probe.

The 15-year-old case came back into the limelight in April after a newspaper reported that Abhaya's medical reports had been tampered with at the Chemical Examiners Laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram.

Two officials at the laboratory, who are alleged to have tampered with the report, are currently on bail. They had undergone a medical examination at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi last week under the supervision of CBI officials.