Bishop Joseph Kallangarat of the Palai diocese of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala warned the families belonging to the community about alleged fraudsters seeking to 'trap' girls and young women. He issued a circular in this regard on Saturday, August 28. In the circular, the Bishop elaborated on how certain people were working to entrap women, by befriending them through phone calls.
"You must be aware of the various sections and groups that have been trying to trap our female children with various tactics,” read the beginning of the circular. It went on to say that the targets are mostly young women who are popular and well known in the parishes. The caller would allegedly introduce themselves as a former vicar or former junior vicar of the parish, someone who they know. The callers would also allegedly call local people's representatives as a way to get the contact information of young women under the pretext of wanting to get in touch with them for some academic work.
"If the receiver expresses any doubt about the voice of the caller, the answer would be that he has just returned from abroad and the difference in voice was because of the weather in the foreign country. They would first pretend to be talking on subjects like honesty and about mother-daughter relationships. But in a while, the topic and the style of language would change to get the information they want. And this kind of trap in various forms has now become common,” the circular further read.
The Bishop urged the parish vicars to be vigilant and 'to duly inform the families in their parishes to be cautious and not fall into the trap. "The circular was issued as a couple of such instances were reported. However it's not yet known if any individual complaint has been filed or if any vicar parish is aware of it," a source in the church told TNM.
This is not the first time a Kerala church has warned the laity of the women from their community being allegedly targeted. Last year, the Syro-Malabar Church found itself in the middle of a controversy when the Church chief Cardinal Mar George Alencherry issued a circular that alleged that Christian women were being targeted and recruited by Islamic terrorist organisations. The circular dated January 15, drew criticism from some church leaders and was not read out in many parishes.