Life Sentence for Dara Singh

India 's Supreme Court upholds life sentence for Dara
New Delhi, Jan 21, (PTI) :

Dara Singh, convicted for burning alive Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons in January 1999, on Friday escaped death penalty with the Supreme Court ruling that the crime was not the ''rarest of rare'' case and upheld the life sentence awarded to him.


“In the case on hand, though Graham Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death while they were sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur, the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity,” the court said.

Dismissing CBI’s plea for death penalty to Singh, a bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan endorsed the Orissa High Court’s finding that his crime did not fall under the rarest of rare category.

In its 76-page judgment, the court came out strongly against the practice of conversion. “It is undisputed that there is no justification for interfering in someone’s belief by way of ‘use of force’, provocation, conversion, incitement or upon a flawed premise that one religion is better than the other,” it said.

On May 19, 2005, the Orissa High Court had commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty imposed by the sessions court on Singh for the murder of Staines and his sons—Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6.

Along with Dara, his accomplice Mahendra Hembram was convicted in the case.
The Staines family was burnt alive in Keonjhar district in Orissa. Staines had worked with leprosy patients in Orissa for 30 years. He and his sons were sleeping on a cold January night when a mob in Manoharpur village poured petrol over his car parked in front of the village church and torched it.

They tried to escape but the mob of about 50 people allegedly prevented them.
Singh had filed an appeal challenging his conviction and the life sentence awarded to him. The appeals were admitted by the apex court in October 2005. “In a country like ours where discrimination on the ground of caste or religion is a taboo, taking lives of persons belonging to another caste or religion is bound to have a dangerous and reactive effect on the society at large,” the court said.

“It strikes at the very root of the orderly society which the founding fathers of our Constitution dreamt of,” the bench added, while upholding the conviction and entailing life term also to Hembram of Keonjhar.

“Our concept of secularism is that the State will have no religion. The State shall treat all religions and religious groups equally and with equal respect without in any manner interfering with their individual right of religion, faith and worship.

“We also conclude with the hope that Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of religion playing a positive role in bringing India’s numerous religion and communities into an integrated prosperous nation be realised by way of equal respect for all religions,” the bench said.
Report taken from the Deccan Herald

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Many people in India feel that Dara Singh deserves a death sentence for his diabolical crime.
The words of the judgement stung me very sharply. Was Dara Singh trying to 'teach them a lesson ' against 'forceful ' conversion by his extremely evil act?
Dr and Mrs Stains served leprosy patients in India faithfully for 30 years. There is no evidence that the Stains were converting people by force. A few days after the killings a Hindu radical swami visited the area where Dr Stains worked and found all Hindus there - leprosy patients being treated and rehabilitated.
Anyone else would have been frozen with shock and anger at the news of the brutal killing of their husband and 2 sons, but ains said she forgave the murders. She kept on working in Orissa Gladys Stains wanting to carry on her husband 's service.

You can read their story in the book Burnt Alive by Vishal Mangaalwadi .

The Supreme Court has given a life term to Dara Singh.
God has given him time to repent of his sin.


Psalm 11:7
For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face.
Psalm 11:6-7

Do remember to pray for Christian workers and missionaries in India