Supreme Court to hear Staines’ murder case

New Delhi – India’s premier investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has challenged before the Supreme Court, the Orissa High Court’s order that commuted the death sentence of Australian missionary killer, Dara Singh, to one that of life imprisonment.

According to the CBI officials, the Orissa High Court had "disregarded the entire evidence while acquitting 11 of the accused and reducing the death sentence slapped on Singh.”

However, “when all the accused were identified by eye witnesses in the identification parade, there was no reason to disbelieve their evidence,” and overturn Singh's death sentence and acquit most militants, the CBI said, in a published statement.

The investigating agency also iterated that the death penalty was justified as this was the "rarest of the rare case" because "the motive was communal [and] two small children were killed...The killing was done by roasting them alive and the accused persons disregarded their pleas to come out of the vehicle."

“We have relied on criteria laid down by the Supreme Court in the Macchi Singh case and have categorized this as the rarest of rare cases,” one CBI official said. “We have, therefore, pressed for re–imposition of capital punishment on Dara Singh.”

“The investigating agency has challenged the court's judgement on the basis of legal points which the court either did not consider or considered erroneously,” the official continued. He asserted that the photographic identification of the accused persons was legally correct and conforms to the guidelines laid down by the apex court.

The CBI also asserted that the Orissa High Court did not consider the accused persons' confessional statements appropriately. It stressed that the evidence collected during the investigation clearly pointed to a criminal conspiracy hatched by Dara Singh with others to eliminate missionary Graham Staines.

Relying upon two separate letters written by accomplice Mahendra Hembrum, who is undergoing life imprisonment along with Dara Singh in this case, the CBI pointed out how the accused had hatched a conspiracy by coming to the village one month prior to the incident in December 1999 to survey the place and then planned the attack when the victim was holding a jungle camp,

Earlier on August 16, Dara Singh had also moved the Supreme Court, challenging the verdict of the Orissa High Court, contending 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.

Though both the appeals were admitted by a Division Bench comprising Justices Asok Bhan and Altamas Kabir on October 18, the apex court warned CBI that it would "only see the reasons given for acquittal by the High Court" and stressed it was for the agency "to show how [that court ruling] was against the law."

“We believe in forgiveness and do not seek revenge…but we want that justice to reinforce truth, the only means capable of bringing peace for all those involved in missionary activities in Orissa,” said Bishop Thomas Thiruthalil of the Balasore Diocese.

“The lower court had verified the evidence against Singh, passing the death sentence. This was very encouraging for those on the side of justice. Christians believe in forgiveness, we are not crying out for revenge, rather, we desire that the truth be brought to light. Only justice which strengthens and proves the truth can bring peace for all those involved in missionary activities in Orissa,” said the bishop, who is also the president of Orissa Catholic Bishops’ Conference. “Dara Singh has many supporters in the Fundamentalist camp, they are all helping him, but we trust the wisdom of the honourable judges of our court for truth and justice to prevail.”

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.

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 added.

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.