Apex court upholds life for Graham Staines’ killer
By IANSFriday, January 21, 2011
NEW DELHI - The Supreme Court Friday upheld the life imprisonment awarded to Dara Singh alias Ravinder Kumar Pal for leading a mob that burnt to death Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in Orissa in January 1999.
While confirming the life term to Dara Singh and his accomplice Mahender Hambram, the apex court bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan said it was not a “rarest of the rare case” warranting death sentence.
Concurring with the Orissa High Court finding, the Supreme Court said that Dara Singh and his accomplice wanted to teach Staines a lesson for his religious activities, including conversions to Christianity.
Staines and his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), were burnt to death by a mob Jan 22, 1999 while they were sleeping in their station wagon at Manoharpur village in Orissa’s Keonjhar district.
