Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Peechi, Thrissur, Kerala, India · 2016

India: Salvation Army pastor convicted twice — 40 years, then life until death

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

pastor of the Salvation Army church at Peechi

Organization

Salvation Army Church, Peechi

Spiritual nexus

The children were congregants' daughters; the pastor's standing with their families is precisely what put him alone with them.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2016-03-01 · two separate convictions

    POCSO special courts, Thrissur, Kerala, India. Sanil K. James, pastor of the Salvation Army church at Peechi, cultivated close relationships with his congregants' families and used the access to rape their children. In March 2016 he was convicted of raping a twelve-year-old (offence December 2013) and given two concurrent twenty-year terms — effectively forty years; in a second case he was convicted of repeatedly raping a thirteen-year-old since 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment until death.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • pastoral relationships with the victims' families that gave him private access to their children

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Already sentenced to 40 years, Kerala pastor gets life until death in second child rape case', The News Minute.

Reports both convictions and sentences.

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Kerala Pastor Gets Life Term Until Death for Second Child Rape', The Quint.

Independent corroboration.

Related record

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