The Pannur Don Bosco land scandal, first exposed by The Commune, has now drawn international attention. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) – the world’s oldest and largest clergy accountability watchdog, headquartered in Washington DC has published the donor family’s dossier demanding a Congregational Enquiry into the actions of former Provincials and the Rector of Don Bosco Egmore.
SNAP’s publication, which draws on The Commune’s original investigation, places the Salesian Chennai Province under the same global spotlight that has confronted dioceses and religious orders across the United States, Europe, and Australia. Critically, it escalates pressure on the Rector Major’s Office in Rome, where the family’s dossier has been formally submitted.
For readers new to the case: the family donated prime land in Pannur, Tiruvallur district, in July 2013 for the sole declared purpose of building an Engineering College for rural youth. The dossier alleges that just 27 days after the then-Provincial’s written assurance to that effect, donor conditions were secretly stripped through a registered document never shown to the signatories and that within nine months, the entire property of roughly 1,79,640 sq. ft. was sold off to private parties for a recorded Rs. 14 crore. The family’s demand names nine senior Salesians whose roles, they say, must be examined by a Congregational Enquiry.
The full background, the timeline of the alleged fraud, the failed Archbishop-mediated settlement, and the family’s four specific questions for Rome is detailed in our earlier coverage of the scandal.
With SNAP’s international amplification, the question the donor family has placed before the Rector Major now echoes well beyond Tamil Nadu: will the Salesian Order protect its power structure, or uphold the integrity of its founder?
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