THE Odisha Government has rejected the plea of Hindutva activist Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh for premature release from prison in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons in Keonjhar in 1999, officials said on Tuesday. Singh, who is serving life imprisonment, had made the appeal for his premature release from prison as he had already spent around 25 years in jail. The Supreme Court, which is hearing his plea, had asked the Odisha Government to take a decision in this regard. The Odisha Government took the decision at a special meeting of the State Sentence Review Board (SSRB) on August 31, the officials said. The meeting resolved that “in view of certain facts and circumstances, the Board is therefore not inclined to recommend his premature release at this stage”, they added.

 

The State Government, while rejecting the plea, maintained that Singh’s plea had earlier also been turned down by the SSRB -- on November 24, 2016, June 24, 2019, December 24, 2020, January 12, 2022 and February 20, 2023 -- “on various grounds including the societal ramifications in apprehension of communal disturbance in the area”. The SSRB’s August 31 special meeting was chaired by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Hemant Sharma and attended by five other members. Sixty-seven-year-old Singh, who hails from Uttar Pradesh but settled in Odisha’s Keonjhar district, is currently serving life imprisonment for burning to death Staines (then 58) and his two minor sons -- Philip and Timothy -- when they were sleeping in a station wagon in front of a church at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar in the intervening night of January 22-23, 1999.