Amid allegations that powerful religious sections were trying to avert the embarrassment of an expose, the locals suspected foulplay and formed an Action Council demanding a proper probe. A series of agitations and petitions later, the state police ordered a Crime Branch probe, which too said she had killed herself. The Action Council, led by civil activist Jomon Puthenpurakkal, got the Kerala High Court to order a CBI probe into the nun’s death.

The first CBI team probing the death reported it as a suicide. The probe had too many holes and a second CBI team led by Dy SP Varghese P Thomas was sent to investigate, and reported that the nun was murdered. Pressure soon mounted on Thomas to backtrack, and he resigned from the CBI in a huff seven years before retirement, but after disclosing how the agency’s higher ups were allegedly pressuring him to report the nun’s killing as a suicide.

In an unprecedented move, all MPs from Kerala petitioned then CBI director K Vijaya Rama Rao to replace the man who was sent to replace Thomas in the probe, and a new officer took over.

The CBI probe, however, still produced no results and the courts were again moved by the Action Council, seeking directions to the agency. The court took to directly looking after the probe progress. The CBI then endorsed Thomas’s findings that the nun was murdered, but claimed it had no hope of finding the killer. It thrice moved the court seeking permission to close investigations, and each time the court slammed the agency and ordered it to probe again, and report to it every three months.