Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor

[citation needed] The Potta Ashram was founded in 1977 as the centre to direct and to co-ordinate popular mission retreats.

George Vempilly, the new director, a sprawling new site was acquired at Muringoor, on the banks of the Chalakudy River, six kilometers away from Potta, and Fr.

Jacob Athickal was tasked with preparing a new and more extensive facility which was to be called Divine Retreat Center.

At this new site, retreats were begun in six other languages besides Malayalam including English, Konkani, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi.

In response to this, high court judge Justice K. Padmanabhan Nair ordered the police to investigate the charges and also directed an SIT to be constituted under Inspector General Vinson M. Paul.

On the basis of testimonials by witnesses against the centre, the FIR includes the following charges: between 1991 and 2006, as many as 974 people died-not all were natural deaths-at the centre and the dead bodies disposed of without investigation; many developed mental illnesses after going to DRC, particularly after unauthorised administration of psychotropic drugs; patients were kept in forced confinement; the centre's medical institutions have no requisite licences or statutory facilities; and DRC had obtained pecuniary favours from the Government by misrepresenting or withholding facts.

Mariyapalana Society, an NGO run by local Catholics, also complained that the centre had tried to receive foreign donations by manipulating documents.