Manoharpur lives with regret – regret of the fire that killed Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons on a winter night 27 years ago in this Santhal village of Odisha. The possibility now that the main accused, Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, a former Bajrang Dal member who is serving a life term, may get premature release has brought the memories back.
Along with apprehension of what it might mean for the village that, on the face of it, is a long way from that night of January 22-23, 1999 – dotted by pucca houses and roads; marked by a police station that came up after the Staines killings, and has not seen any communal violence since; and home now to many more tribals who have embraced Christianity, among them a juvenile who was convicted in the murders.
Laxmi Hansdah, who is in her 60s, remembers that night well. Her voice trembling, she pulls the end of her sari over her face, saying: “That night will stay with me until I die. Why are you asking about it now?”
Mahendra Hembram, who was convicted in the horrific crime & spent 25 years jail term before being released in April last year
Dara, who is lodged in Keonjhar District Jail, moved the Supreme Court in July 2024 seeking remission, appealing that he had spent over 24 years in prison already and that he repented acting as he did, in “a fit of youthful rage”. The Supreme Court has directed the Odisha government to take a call on the matter within a month.
Dara, who was 37 when arrested, belongs to Auraiya district in Uttar Pradesh, and it is not clear where he will choose to settle down if released.
Another accused in the case who was also serving life, Mahendra Hembram, came out on parole last year.
A villager, who does not want to be named, says he was a child in 1999 but remembers what happened enough to dread a repeat. “We are living in harmony… Whether Dara is released or not is up to the government and court, but it should not trigger problems in the village.”
Ojen Hansdah, who was convicted by the trial court in 2003 but later acquitted by the Orissa HC in 2005
Ojen Hansdah, who was convicted for the Staines killing and spent six years in jail before being acquitted in 2005, is also repentant, though he claims he was framed. Partially paralysed, and not sure of his age (“I have lost count”), Hansdah says: “I don’t know what exactly happened. It shouldn’t have happened at all.”
Hansdah’s nephew was the only juvenile convict in the case and spent nine years in a juvenile home before being freed in 2008. Now 38 and a father of two, he talks of “regret” too, while asserting that he was an unwitting participant in the attack. “A mob came and started attacking the vehicles.”
Earning a living from a small patch of farm, he converted to Christianity around two years ago. “It brought me inner peace,” says the 38-year-old, adding: “Nobody influenced or pressured me. It was my own decision, stemming from grief and introspection… I join prayers every Sunday for peace.”
Asked about allegations of forcible conversion, including by Staines, Chetan Murmu, the pastor at a newly built church-cum-prayer house in the village who knew the missionary well, suggests the numbers say it all. Only seven of the over 250-households in the village were Christian when Staines and his sons were killed. “Now 41 families follow Christianity,” Murmu says.
Talking about how Staines, who ran a centre for leprosy afflicted, helped his daughter, Murmu, 60, says releasing Dara would set a wrong precedent. “Staines was a victim of hate crime and his killers should not be allowed to walk free… And why did they kill his two innocent children? What was their mistake?”
On the night of January 22, 1999, a mob of around 50 people led by Singh, attacked a camp at Manoharpur in Odisha’s Keonjhar district and burnt alive Staines and his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), while they were asleep inside a station wagon. (File Photo/Enhanced using AI)
While he was in the Opposition, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, who represents the Keonjhar Assembly constituency, had supported the demand for Dara’s release. Keonjhar BJP MP Aananta Nayak also supports it, saying Dara has already received his punishment. Anandpur BJD MLA Abhimanyu Sethi refused to speak on the matter.
Hembram, who was given life for Staines’s killing and was released in April last year on grounds of “good behaviour”, says he himself has “no regrets”. “Staines was a missionary, who was invading our culture and forcing people to convert. The attack happened in a fit of rage by an angry mob.”
Then just 21 and a final-year student doing his graduation, Hembram says he once dreamed of becoming an official “to serve the community”. “It’s all over now,” he says, adding that no one in the village wants to associate with him since his release. He lives at his late elder brother’s home and gets by on the Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 monthly given by the ‘Dara Sena’, a little-known self-confessed fighter for Hinduism and for Dara Singh.
Hembram, 48, says he too is fighting for the release of Dara, “my elder brother”, and visits him regularly in jail, most recently last month.
Staines’s legacy
Staines arrived in Mayurbhanj in 1965, and started his work for lepers – who were treated as untouchables – in Baripada. Alongside, he held ‘jungle camps’ in tribal villages of Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts, where he preached the Gospel.
Dara was a Hindi teacher at Maliposi School in Patna block in the district, who gradually fashioned himself as an activist against cattle trading, and as a campaigner against conversions, with Staines one of his main targets of attack.
In 1999, the annual jungle camp in Manoharpur was scheduled from January 21 to 24. Staines drove down with sons, 10 and 6, from Baripada on January 20 in a station wagon.
For two days, they held the camp, talking about and showing films on the life of Jesus Christ and on Christianity.
On January 22, after they had wrapped up, Staines and his sons went to sleep in their station wagon, covering the roof with straw for insulation from the cold.
Around midnight, Dara and a group of youths, including the juvenile (then only 12), armed with lathis, axes and arrows, attacked the camp.
Staines’s widow Gladys identified her husband and sons with the help of a burnt Titan wrist watch, a table clock and a Canon camera belonging to Staines.
Police, which said it got to know only the next morning, arrested 51 suspects. After the case was handed over to the CBI, Dara was arrested on January 31, 2000, more than a year after the incident.
Later, Gladys announced she bore no bitterness or ill-feeling towards the killers, and “forgave” Dara. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2005. Bishop Pallav Lima, general secretary of the Odisha unit of the Rashtriya Christian Morcha, says she now lives a private life in Australia and has no contact with India.
In September 2003, a CBI court convicted 13 for the killing, giving death to Dara and life to others barring the juvenile. In June 2005, the Orissa High Court commuted Dara’s death sentence to life, and upheld Hembram’s conviction while acquitting 11 due to lack of evidence.
In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the life sentences of Dara and Hembram.
A Justice D P Wadhwa Commission found no evidence of forced religious conversion by Staines, or of direct involvement of the Bajrang Dal in the killings.
In 2004, a Graham Staines Memorial Hospital was set up with donations from family and friends at Baripada, where Staines had started his work for lepers. The hospital is facing a severe fund crunch and has only three staff members now, including a doctor, a nurse and an assistant. The nurse, Puspalata Pradhan, who has been at the hospital since 2010, says it was shut for months last year because of management issues.
“Though it reopened, the fund crunch continues. Hardly any patients visit now as they prefer the government hospital,” Pradhan says.
The Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home, established in 1896, with which Staines was also associated, has 51 inmates. It is managed by the Evangelical Missionary Society.
Besides, every year from January 22 to 24, a ‘jungle camp’ is held at the site in Manoharpur where the Staines were killed, with around 4,000 to 5,000 people attending.
On second thoughts, Hembram says, he has one regret. That night, Staines was their target. “We were not aware his kids were inside the station wagon.”
Mahendra Hembram, who was convicted in the horrific crime & spent 25 years jail term before being released in April last year
Ojen Hansdah, who was convicted by the trial court in 2003 but later acquitted by the Orissa HC in 2005
On the night of January 22, 1999, a mob of around 50 people led by Singh, attacked a camp at Manoharpur in Odisha’s Keonjhar district and burnt alive Staines and his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), while they were asleep inside a station wagon. (File Photo/Enhanced using AI)