NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court amended a ruling upholding a life-in-prison sentence for two men convicted of murdering a Baptist missionary and his two young sons 12 years ago by removing language that critics said appeared to condone vigilante violence intended to “teach a lesson” against proselytizing among the nation’s tribal poor.
On Jan. 21, the Supreme Court upheld life sentences for Dara Singh and Mahendra Hembram.
They were convicted of burning Graham Staines, 58, and his sons Philip, 9, and Timothy, 7, alive while they slept in a van outside a church in Koenjhar district of Orissa, eastern India, on Jan. 22, 1999.
Declining to reinstate the death penalty for one of the killers, the 76-page judgment stated “there is no justification for people committing conversions on the premise that one religion is better than the other.”
In a paragraph explaining why they declined to reinstate a death penalty awarded by a jury in 2003 but commuted to life sentences two years later, the justices opinioned:
“In the case in hand, though Graham Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death while they were sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur, the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity.”
The language prompted protest among Indian Christians, who claimed it “de-legitimized” their constitutional right to profess, practice and propagate their faith. One group wrote an open letter Jan. 25 objecting to “gratuitous observations” and language “that seems to acknowledge vigilante action of criminals like Dara Singh who take upon themselves ‘to teach lessons’ to persons serving lepers and the poor.”
Bowing to the pressure, the court changed its reasoning to the fact that 12 years has passed since the act was committed and that it could find no reason to enhance the sentence “in view of the factual position discussed in earlier paragraphs” of the ruling.
Staines moved to India from Australia in 1965 and for 34 years ran a leprosy home in the Mayurbhanj district about 900 miles southeast of New Delhi.
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