Graham Staines Murder: Dara Singh, lodged in Keonjhar District Jail of Odisha, is once again in the news. He has been imprisoned in this jail for the last 26 years and now there is talk of his release. 62 year old Dara is the main culprit of burning alive a Christian family. In 1999, Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two sons Philip and Timothy were burnt alive in Manoharpur village of Keonjhar. In this case, he was sentenced to death in 2003 but later it was commuted to life imprisonment. Dara has been in jail since 2000.
The Odisha State Sentence Review Board has recommended the release of Dara Singh and the Supreme Court has directed the government to complete the process soon. Actually, a meeting of the Odisha State Punishment Review Board was held on July 6. In this, cases of premature release of eligible prisoners serving life imprisonment were considered. During this, Dara Singh case was also considered.
At the same time, the petition filed by Dara Sena was heard in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. During this, the bench of Justice Manoj Mishra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi gave time till August 15 to the state government to take a decision on his (Dara’s) release and said that the state government should complete the process as soon as possible and release him before the deadline. The next hearing of the case will be on August 19.
What did Dara Singh’s lawyer AP Singh say?
Meanwhile, Dara Singh’s lawyer AP Singh told Times of India that the state government has told the court that the sentence review board has already met and considered the petition. It’s just taking a little while to verify the address. He further said that the bench of Justice Manoj Mishra and Justice Vijay Bishnoi wants the state government to release Dara even before the decision on commutation of his sentence is taken. The court has postponed the case till August 19. The bench said that we hope that the committee will take its decision.
What is the remission policy of Odisha government?
The biggest thing is that former Bajrang Dal worker Dara Singh has been in jail for 26 years without any parole. Now, due to the remission policy of the Odisha government, he can now come out of jail. Under this, a convict whose death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment becomes eligible for remission in sentence after completing 25 years in jail on the recommendation of the Sentence Review Board and the approval of the State. According to the information, Dara Singh is originally a resident of Auraiya district of UP.
What is Odisha’s Graham Staines murder case?
On January 22, 1999, Graham Staines and his two sons, Philip and Timothy, went to a Christian conference in Manoharpur in Keonjhar district of Odisha. They were sleeping in the car at night, when a mob led by Dara Singh locked the car from outside and set it on fire. Staines and both his sons were burnt to death in this attack. During this the crowd raised slogans of ‘Jai Bajrang Dal’.
The attackers alleged that Staines was forcibly converting Hindus into Christians. After this, a judicial inquiry commission was formed under the chairmanship of Supreme Court Justice DP Wadhwa. The commission said in its report that Bajrang Dal had neither planned this crime nor was involved in it. No evidence was found of forced conversion of Staines. He was running an ashram for leprosy patients. However, the report definitely indicated that Dara Singh and some members of the mob were associated with the Sangh.
CBI had held 14 people guilty
According to the report of The Hindu, between 1999 and 2000, a total of 51 people were arrested in cases related to this massacre. However, 37 of them were acquitted after the initial trial. The special CBI court had convicted 14 people including Dara Singh in this case. Later the Odisha High Court acquitted 11 more people.
HC converted death sentence to life imprisonment
In 2003, the trial court sentenced Dara Singh to death but in 2005 it was commuted to life imprisonment by the High Court. In 2011 the matter reached the Supreme Court. He upheld the order of the High Court. Last year, Mahendra Hembram was released from jail in this case. At the same time, Chenchu Hansdah, who was a minor at the time of the incident, was released in 2008 after an appeal.
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