New Delhi: In a major legal development, the Odisha State Sentence Review Board has recommended the premature release of Dara Singh, the prime convict in the gruesome 1999 murder case of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons. The decision to set him free on the grounds of good behaviour comes after he spent more than twenty six years behind bars.
The brutal killings that shook the entire nation took place on the wintry night of January 22, 1999. Graham Staines and his two minor sons, Philip and Timothy, were sleeping in their station wagon at Manoharpur village in the Keonjhar district when a violent mob led by Singh locked the vehicle from the outside and set it ablaze. The missionary had been working in the region since 1965, running a shelter for leprosy patients and serving the tribal communities.
Following the horrific incident, law enforcement agencies launched a massive manhunt and arrested multiple people. A designated trial court initially sentenced Dara Singh, whose real name is Rabindra Kumar Pal, to the death penalty in 2003 for leading the mob. However, the Orissa High Court later commuted his capital punishment to life imprisonment in 2005. The Supreme Court of India officially upheld this decision in 2011, noting that while the crime was severely condemnable, it did not warrant the death penalty.
The current move for his release follows recent directives from the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the apex court had granted the Odisha government a six week deadline to decide on his pending plea for remission. Singh had submitted that he completed the requisite fourteen years of imprisonment to qualify for premature release under the state remission policy. After careful consideration, the prison authorities and the review panel cleared the proposal.
According to official sources, the administration is now processing the final paperwork, and the convict is expected to walk out of the Keonjhar district jail by mid August. As the news of his impending release spreads, it has reignited public discussions on justice and the enduring pain of a tragedy that remains one of the darkest chapters of religious violence in Indian history.