Graham Staines murder case: accused and Dara Singh associate released from Odisha jail after 25 years

After being released from jail, Hembram claimed he was falsely implicated in the case as he was opposing religious conversion and cow slaughter.

On March 19, the Supreme Court asked the Odisha Government to take a decision on the plea for premature release of Singh, who is serving a life sentence, in a separate jail in Keonjhar. Officials said the state government would take a call on Singh’s release in the next few weeks.

According to officials, Hembram’s release was in accordance with the recommendations of the Odisha State Sentence Review Board based on the guidelines of the premature release policy. Besides Hembram, 30 other convicts were also released from various prisons in different cases.

Staines and his two minor sons — Timothy, 6, and Philip, 10 — were burnt alive by a mob while they slept inside a jeep in the Manoharpur village of the Keonjhar district on the night of January 21, 1999. The attack was linked to tension over alleged religious conversion.

As many as 51 people were arrested in connection with the crime between 1999 and 2000, and 37 of them were acquitted within three years. On September 22, 2003, a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Bhubaneswar awarded a death sentence to Singh and life imprisonment to 12 others in the murder case. One more accused, a juvenile at the time of the crime, was tried in a juvenile court.

While the Orissa High Court later acquitted 11 others, excluding Hembram, the accused tried in the juvenile court was released in 2008. On May 19, 2005, the Orissa HC also reduced Singh’s sentence to life imprisonment.