Bhubaneswar: Odisha State Council of Communist Party of India (CPI) has strongly condemned the reported move by the BJP-led state government to secure the pre mature release of Dara Singh alias Rabindra Pal Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the gruesome murder of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, who were burnt alive in Kendujhar district in January 1999.
In a statement issued Friday, the CPI said any attempt to facilitate the release of Dara Singh would violate the spirit of justice, weaken the rule of law, and pose a serious threat to communal harmony and public order in Odisha. The party described it as a disturbing contradiction that while the plea of a convicted murderer like Singh has been considered by the Supreme Court, several undertrial prisoners, including former JNU research scholar Umar Khalid, have remained in jail for years without regular hearings or the commencement of their trials. The CPI urged the SC to exercise the utmost caution while considering Singh’s case, recalling that the premature release of the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case was subsequently set aside following judicial review.
The CPI further noted that Singh was not only convicted in the Staines murder case but has also been linked to other incidents of communal violence and brutal killings. It alleged that August 26, 1999, a mob led by Dara Singh murdered Muslim cloth trader Sheikh Rehman in Mayurbhanj after severing his hands and burning him alive.
The Party also referred to the killing of Catholic missionary Father Arul Doss and the burning of his church a few days later, alleging that the attack was carried out by the same extremist group. The party alleged that Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi had, during his tenure as an MLA, supported the demand for Singh’s release. It further claimed that organisations affiliated with the Sangh Parivar have consistently glorified Singh, raising concerns that the recommendations of the State Sentence Review Board could be influenced by communal considerations.
Orissa POST – Odisha’s No.1 English Daily