Staines killer, Dara Singh, challenges Orissa High Court verdict, moves Supreme Court

New Delhi – Dara Singh, the prime convict in the 1999 murder case of the Australian missionary Graham Staines, has moved the Supreme Court, challenging the verdict of the Orissa High Court that commuted his death sentence to one that of life imprisonment, Christian Today has confirmed.

Dara Singh has filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court of India on August 16 upon the advice of his lawyers, Debasish Panda and Sibu Sankar Mishra.

“The SLP was filed against the High Court's May 19 order awarding life sentence to my client,” said Mr. Panda.

Dara Singh, in his 261–page petition, has contended that there was no material evidence to prove his involvement in the crime and his conviction was merely upheld in the Orissa High Court on the basis of presumption of his presence at the site of the incident as the mob was shouting slogans in his name.

“The conviction of Dara Singh is solely on the basis of mere presumption, which is contrary to the principles of criminal justice and devoid of law,” said Mr. Mishra, who had filed the petition on behalf of the accused.

The murder case that tugged the conscience of the nation and received global media coverage took place on the night of January 22, 1999 when Dara Singh, alias Ravindra Kumar Pal, instigated a Hindu mob and attacked the Australia missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons who were sleeping in their jeep parked on the outskirts of Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district, Orissa. In the darkness of the night, the mob, led by Dara Singh, torched the jeep, burning the occupants alive.

On June 22, 1999, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chargesheeted 18 persons including Dara Singh for the murder but it was only on January 31, 2000, that Dara Singh was finally arrested in the jungles of Mayurbhanj district, Orissa.

On September 22, 2003, the District and Sessions Court, Khurda, sentenced Dara Singh to death and awarded life imprisonment to 12 others. However, on October 10, Dara Singh challenged the ruling of the lower court in the High Court of Orissa, finally getting a reprieve on May 19, 2005.

While delivering its 106–page judgment, the Division Bench, comprising of Chief Justice Surjit Burman Roy and Justice Laxmikanta Mahapatra, stated, “The eyewitnesses never attributed any particular fatal injury to appellant Dara Singh for which he can be held individually responsible for the death of the three deceased persons or for the death of any of them. Evidence against the participants – including Dara Singh – being of identical nature, they were all equally responsible for the three murders. Therefore, no justification is available from the evidence on record to single out Dara Singh for convicting him under Section 302 IPC…the sentence of death thereunder cannot be sustained and must be set aside.”

However, the court went on to add that though the appellant cannot be held individually liable, he can be held “liable vicariously along with others by invoking Section 149 IPC, for the murder of the three deceased persons.”

Though the Division Bench called the evidence furnished by the prosecution against Dara Singh “weak and speculative in nature,” it said that he was part of an “unlawful assembly” that had committed the murder, and, hence, commuted the death sentence of Dara Singh to one that of life imprisonment.

The Orissa High Court also acquitted 11 others whom the lower court had awarded life imprisonment in the case stating that the convictions and sentences of the remaining 11 appellants “cannot be sustained as there is no reliable evidence on record as regards their identification.” The Court, however, confirmed the trial court’s decision to award life imprisonment to another convict, Mahendra Hembrum.

Besides the killing of the Australian missionary, Dara Singh is also the prime accused in the murder of Arul Doss, priest of Jambani church in Mayurbhanj district. Fr. Doss had succumbed to arrow–shot injuries when Dara and 21 others allegedly raided the church in 1999 a few months before the murder of Graham Staines.

He is also an accused in two other murder cases that includes the August 26, 1999 incident at Padiabeda weekly market in Mayurbhanj district where a Muslim garment trader, Sk. Rehman was burnt alive and the August 16, 1999 incident at Kendumundi in the same district in which a helper of a truck engaged in the transportation of cattle was killed.

The Orissa High Court judgment that had sparked widespread protest within the Christian community has been seen as a deliberate attempt to encourage the Hindu extremists to unleash a fresh reign of terror on Christian missionaries in Orissa and elsewhere (read article 'Orissa HC verdict in Staines murder case may lead to bloodshed, fear Christian groups.' http://in.christiantoday.com/news/nat_740.htm).

Though several people have claimed the hand of a Hindu fundamentalist outfit, the Bajrang Dal, behind the killing, the Wadhwa Commission, instituted to inquire into the matter, held Singh personally responsible and said that his motive was to stop the conversion of tribal communities to Christianity. There was no evidence that any one group was behind the attack, it said.

Dozens of incidents of atrocities being perpetrated on minority communities have been reported from Orissa, one of the strongholds of Hindu fundamentalists. The state, where Christians account for only 2 percent of the total population, is ruled by a coalition government, including the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Till date, anti–conversion laws exist in only three states and Orissa is one of them.