Thursday, May 19 2005 09:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Cuttack: Dara Singh, sentenced to death in the sensational Graham Staines triple murder case, today (May 19, 2005) got a reprieve as the Orissa High Court set aside the verdict of the trial court while commuting the order to life imprisonment.

Delivering the judgement in a packed courtroom, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sujit Burman Roy and Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra retained the life imprisonment awarded in the case to Mahendra Hembram.

The other 11 convicts, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in the trial court, were acquitted by the High Court.

Dara, now lodged in the circle jail at Baripada as he is facing three other murder charges in different cases, was not present in the court.

Graham Stuart Staines, an Australian missionary who ran a leprosy home at Baripada in Mayurbhanj district, and his two minor sons Philip (11) and Timothy (8) were asleep in their station wagon at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district on the night of January 22, 1999 when a crowd surrounded them and set the vehicle ablaze killing all three.

The incident had sparked worldwide outrage even as the Central Government set up a judicial commission headed by then Supreme Court Judge D P Wadhwa.

The case was initially handled by the crime branch of the Orissa police and then handed over to the CBI for investigation.

The court retained the life imprisonment awarded by the lower court to Mahendra Hembram while acquitting all other appellants.

The district and sessions judge Khurda M N Patnaik after a long-drawn trial had sentenced Dara to death while awarding life imprisonment to 12 others, including Hembram in his judgement pronounced on September 22, 2003.

One of the accused Andha Naik alias Aniruddh Dandapat was acquitted by the court.

The incident had sparked countrywide outrage leading to the setting up of a judicial commission headed by then sitting judge of Supreme Court D P Wadhwa.