IANS
Kottayam (Kerala)

The body of 83-year-old nun Sister Jose Maria was exhumed near here yesterday. Police conducted a fresh autopsy after it was claimed that the nun had not died of natural causes as earlier believed but had been murdered.
The autopsy was done by a forensic team in the presence of the Kottayam district police chief Satish Beno. It was close to the graveyard which had been cordoned off by police. The dead nun’s relatives were also present.
Sister Maria had died a few days after being hospitalised. It was then believed that she died of injuries suffered due to a fall at the convent where she had been residing. Since she died in the hospital no autopsy had then been conducted.
However, things changed after the Kerala Police arrested Satish Babu, 38, from Haridwar last month for the murder of Sister Amala, 69, at a convent in Pala near here.
According to police, Babu had a strange obsession for nuns. He used to derive some sort of sadistic pleasure from attacking elderly nuns.
During questioning, Babu revealed that he had killed Sister Maria by hitting her on her head with a wooden club.
“A charge-sheet has already been registered in the new case. We will now wait for the scientific report, for which the autopsy has just been done,” said Beno, Kottayam district police chief, to reporters.
Babu was arrested in Haridwar last Thursday after the Kerala Police traced a phone call made by the accused to his brother in Kasargod town. He was brought to Kerala last Sunday.