Mob burnt missionary and sons to death, trial told
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Your support makes all the difference.A witness in the trial of 14 men accused of burning to death an Australian missionary and his two sons testified yesterday that he heard the children crying as a mob beat on their vehicle with sticks.
Graham Stewart Staines and his sons Philip, aged 10, and Timothy, eight, were sleeping in their car outside a church in eastern India on 23 January 1999 when a crowd began beating on the vehicle and set it on fire.
Lavlal Tudu, 23, a resident of Manoharpur, a village in the remote jungle of Orissa state where the attack took place, told the court in the state capital about what happened on the night of the killing.
Mr Tudu, who said he had been a Christian for eight years, came out of his house after hearing the sound of banging.
He said he saw a group of about 20 people armed with sticks and bows and arrows beating a vehicle. "I heard the bitter cries of children while the miscreants were beating their vehicle," Mr Tudu said.
The men in the crowd carried torches, he added, and four of them snatched straw from Mr Tudu's thatched roof and used it to set fire to Mr Staines's vehicle and another vehicle parked near by.
Mr Tudu identified the four accused – Dara Singh, Thoram Ho, Daya Patra and Rajat Das – who were all in the dock.
Mr Singh and Mr Das were brought to court amid tight security. Witnesses testified earlier that Mr Das and the other accused had set the Staines's car on fire, while Mr Singh led and directed the mob.
At the time of the incident, anti-Christian sentiment had been on the rise in the region, and the killing of the Australian missionary followed several other attacks. Mr Singh is believed to be a supporter of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu fundamentalist organisation rumoured to have political links with the BJP, the party of India's Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP has denied any links with Mr Singh.
Mr Singh is also being tried for the murder of Sheikh Rehman, a Muslim trader in Padiabeda, a village about 40 miles from Manoharpur. Mr Rahman was burnt to death in an attack six months after Mr Staines was killed.
The court has also heard testimony from the head of a private security agency that employed Mahendra Hembram, another man who has been accused of involvement in the killing of Mr Staines and his children.
Rabindra Kumar Jena, the security chief, told the court that Mr Hembram had taken leave for five days, a period that coincided with the the killing.
Last month, an expert witness told the court that the handwriting of a letter narrating the sequence of events leading to the deaths matched the handwriting in Mr Hembram's application for a job with the security agency.
That letter, which Mr Hembram allegedly wrote to his sister, is considered to be a vital piece of evidence.
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