By Robin Sam
ALTHOUGH Joel Giftson joined Twitter in April 2013, he has not been indiscriminate in following people on it. On October 6, 2020, the day this story goes up, he has 897 followers while he himself follows 706 accounts. According to his own admission, he is not as much into tweeting as he is into retweeting. But, an original Tweet he put out on Sunday (Oct 4) was retweeted over 2,500 times, liked by 4,000 people and had a little over 170 comments. What followed was a mini tsunami of sorts at Scripture Union, a Christian organization whose India office is headquartered in Chennai, and in ministry circles in India.
The tweet was about a SU staffer Samuel Jaisundar, who works as the secretary of the English department. He, Giftson, alleged had been sending inappropriate messages to underage girls across India asking them to video call him, and meet him alone. He is also said to have expressed his wish to cuddle them. Jaisundar was not alone in this. Reuben Clement, who works with him in the same department, was also accused of soliciting explicit photos from girls whom they had met in schools, VBS centres and retreat meetings along with Jaisundar. Two other colleagues, Albert and Janet Ebenezer who work out of Coimbatore like Sam Jaisundar and Reuben Clement, were also named in the tweets. While there was a screenshot where Albert was found to have made several video calls via Mesenger to a girl, according to Giftson nothing inappropriate was found about him. Later, he deleted the screenshot concerning Albert from his tweet threads. Janet Ebenezer, whom some of the affected girls called as Jem akka (akka is sister in Tamil), allegedly told the girls not to rake up the issue as it would ruin Samuel Jaisundar’s career. All of these staffers acted in the capacity of counselors, preachers, singers and were full time staffers of Scripture Union.
The Christian Messenger spoke to Joel Giftson, the man who blew the whistle on the hanky panky goings on of the SU staffers on Oct 5. Giftson graduated last year and is doing CMA currently. Although Giftson refused to reveal the name of his church, he maintained he was part of the CSI diocese in Vellore.
Excerpts from the telephonic interview.
When did you come to know about this issue?
I actually knew about it yesterday (Oct 4, 2020) when my friend’s sister posted about Sam Jaisundar on Instagram. A couple of other women also commented on that post about their own experiences with Jaisundar. They put their own stories on Instagram talking about how he contacted them and made inappropriate comments.
This friend’s sister you talked about, is she a victim too? Did she personally know Sam and Reuben?
Yes. They used to come to our school. All of us know them. I have interacted with them during the VBS meetings. One of my close friends also posted an Instagram story where she shared her own experience. I thought this had to be shared with the general public. So I asked these women to send me screenshots of their chats with these guys so I can put it out on Twitter.
Did you raise the issue with Scripture Union?
First of all, it was raised with Scripture Union only. Some of the affected women posted these screenshots on the organization’s Facebook page. Some others who were in touch with a person at SU called Jem akka sent the screenshots to her. But the women were asked to keep their mouths shut about the issue by Jem akka. She said she did not want a bad name for the institution. But, these women were in no mood to let go. That’s when I contacted them, got the screenshots of the conversations and tweeted them. Actually, the problem is this has been going on for a decade in Scripture Union with the two men. There are claims that most of them in Scripture Union knew about it. Although they had advised these men they had not stopped it. A senior member of the organization who advised them never reported this matter to the authorities in SU.
So, it was the girls who raised the issue with SU. Did you consider talking to SU before you tweeted about it?
No, I hadn’t. I asked the women if they had raised it with the organisation. When I checked with the women, they told me Sam had deleted his social media accounts and had switched off his phone when they started posting on Instagram. That’s when I believed he was really in a spot.
Joel, I want to know if your identity is true? Because when I called you and you called me back Trucaller says your name is Periyar Ramasamy. Also, when I was getting ready for this interview I received a couple of screenshots from a friend in which you seem to be coaxing someone to tweet the fake news because ‘somebody gave you a lot of money to do it.’
I have got these screenshots too. I have raised this issue with a singer and activist (Chinmayi) who also tweeted about it. Her team examined the screenshots and found them to be fake. There are apps that can do it for you. She has also put out a story about it in Instagram. I can assure you I didn’t get any money from anyone to tweet the story. And this is my true identity. I am Joel Giftson. There is a background story to Trucaller throwing up the name of Periyar Ramasamy. This wasn’t my number like some 7 years ago, I was using another number. When I lost the old number, I used the universal number change to get this number through another network. So, this number that I am using now was earlier used by someone else.
But, if you had been using this number for 7 years as you say, your friends would have saved it in your name, right?
Yeah, but I don’t know why it’s not displaying my name. But, this is my number and my true identity.
Would your women friends be willing to go on record with us about this issue?
Yes, they would be willing to talk to you.
Last updated at 11:08Â pm on Oct 6, 2020.
