A mob led by Singh attacked Staines and his sons while they slept in their station wagon and then set the vehicle on fire. When they tried to escape, the mob, armed with lathis, prevented them from getting out, leading to their deaths. Their skeletal remains were later recovered.Staines and his wife Gladys worked with the Mayurbhanj Evangelical Missionary organisation and cared for leprosy patients.A total of 14 persons, including Singh and Hembram, were accused in the gruesome case.However, 12 of them were acquitted, while Singh and Hembram were sentenced to life imprisonment.Hembram, hailing from Manoharpur village, was arrested in 1999, while Dara Singh was picked up on January 31, 2000, by then Mayurbhanj SP Y B Khurania, who is now the DGP.Initially kept as an undertrial prisoner at Jharpada Jail in Bhubaneswar, Hembram was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 22, 2003.Over the years, Hembram was incarcerated in several facilities, including Jharpada, Jamujhari Open Air Jail (Bhubaneswar), and jails in Cuttack, Berhampur, Baripada, Anandpur Sub-Jail, before being transferred to Keonjhar Jail on September 28, 2011.He remained there until his release.During the trial at the CBI court in Bhubaneswar on February 1, 2002, Hembram reportedly lost mental composure and declared himself the sole culprit and claimed that others were innocent.Trial started on March 1, 2001 at the District and Sessions Court in Khurda, which was designated as a CBI court.Evidence against Dara Singh was confirmed when one of the accused persons, Dayanidhi Patra, told the trial court that he was present when he (Dara Singh) set fire to the vehicle.The trial concluded on August 18, 2003, with Judge Mahendra Patnaik sentencing Dara Singh and 12 others, while acquitting Anirudha Dandapat, alias Andha Nayak, for lack of evidence.On September 22, 2003, the court awarded Dara Singh the death penalty and sentenced 12 others to life imprisonment.However, in 2005, the Orissa High Court commuted Singh’s death sentence to life imprisonment, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.Dara Singh, currently serving a life sentence, filed a mercy petition in the Supreme Court in August 2024 seeking release.Another mercy plea was also submitted to the President of India.Meanwhile, on March 19, 2025, the Supreme Court directed the Odisha government to take a decision on the remission plea of a “repenting” Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, who continues to serve his sentence for the murders of Staines and his sons.
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