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Journalism of Courage
The Enforcement Directorate Monday raided multiple premises, including the headquarters, of the Church of South India (CSI) in Thiruvananthapuram in connection with an alleged black money scam related to accepting capitation fees for admission to a medical college run by the church.
The raids were held as part of the ED’s probe into the case that the church-run Dr Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College at Karakonam had accepted a capitation fee for admission and the deal involved black money.
The raided premises included the residences of CSI South Kerala Bishop Dharmaraj Rasalam, medical college director Dr Bennet Abraham, who had contested as a Left candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and CSI church secretary Praveen.
Earlier, the church had faced an allegation that capitation fees collected from the students were parked in a separate account without any receipts or bills. The admission to the college had been embroiled in controversy after 11 students produced fake community certificates in 2018.
Last year, the Kerala Police Crime Branch had probed into the allegation that the college did not give admission to students from whom capitation fees were collected. Although the Crime Branch had reported to the court that it could not find evidence for the alleged crime, the court early this year had rejected the probe report.
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