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Odisha’s BJP government to rule on clemency for extremist who burnt missionary alive
The Supreme Court ordered the northeastern Indian state to decide within six weeks. Dara Singh was given life imprisonment for the murder of Australian pastor Graham Staines and his two sons aged 10 and six. In his petition he says he has "repented", but for Christian representatives, the court’s decision “is really disturbing” for the community.
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Bhubaneswar (AsiaNews) – The Supreme Court of India has given the government of Odisha (Orissa) six weeks to respond to the request for clemency presented by Dara Singh, a Hindu extremist sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons.
The notice was issued two days ago by a panel of the court formed by Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti.
Following recent state elections in Odisha, the Hindu ultranationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in the eastern state with a tribal majority for the first time.
In 1999, Singh, a member of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu far-right youth organisation, led a mob of fanatics to a station wagon where Staines and his sons Philip and Timothy, aged 10 and six, were sleeping, in the village of Manoharpur. The car was set on fire and the pastor and his two children were burnt alive because they were Christians.
Singh was sentenced to death in 2003, but in 2005 the Orissa High Court commuted the sentence to life imprisonment and acquitted 11 other defendants, a sentence upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.
Singh, who is 61 now, wrote in the petition filed through his lawyer that he has already served 24 years in prison, that he had not been able to attend the last rites of his mother when she passed away, and that he has repented for his “action taken in the fit of his youthful rage”.
The petition also refers to the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that allowed the early release of the people convicted for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, prime minister in the second half of the 1980s.
However, in the early 2000s, Singh was also convicted of the murder of another priest working with the poor, Fr Arul Doss (killed with an arrow while he was at home) and two Muslim shopkeepers.
Christian representatives in Odisha have expressed concern over the Supreme Court's notice to allow the local government, which is backed by the Bajrang Dal, to rule on Singh's early release.
"The fact that the Supreme Court issued this notice and is ready to hear [the petition] is really disturbing for us, because this is one of the rarest crimes, against humanity, not just against a family," said Fr Ajaya Kumar Singh, human rights activist in the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar.
"The government should in no way show sympathy to this person because it could have other dangerous effects on the government and law and order. It would create mistrust and fear in the Christian community, not only in Orissa but throughout India. The government should not be inclined to give any favours to Singh," the clergyman said.
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