A tragic incident occurred on the night between January 21 and 22, 1999 wherein Dara Singh—a Bajrang Dal activist from the Gangetic plains—targeted and burned alive Australian Christian missionary Graham Stuart Staines, 58, and his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), as they slept in their jeep in a forest clearing in Manouharpur-Baripada. Staines was dedicated to working with leprosy victims.
The heinous act drew widespread condemnation from the then-President of India, K.R. Narayanan, and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who referred to it as a black spot on the nation. Vajpayee had recently visited Dang in Gujarat, where Sangh Parivar members had burned several small log churches.
He called for a national debate on the conversion of tribals to Christianity, attributing the church burnings to fringe elements, estimating them to be "not more than one percent of the people."
Subsequently, George Fernandes, a cabinet minister, was sent to Orissa to investigate. Upon his return, Fernandes announced that the gruesome murders were the result of a foreign hand.
Gladys Staines, Graham's widow, remains engaged in Odisha, the renamed state. Their surviving daughter, now a medical doctor in Australia, had not accompanied them on the fateful visit to the villages.
The trial revealed the vicious and inhumane manner of the Staines' deaths. They had awakened when their vehicle caught fire, and Dara Singh and his accomplice used lathis to push them back into the flames until they perished.
The Staines triple-murders brought global attention to the violence against the Christian community in India by religious and nationalist extremist groups, collectively known as the Sangh Parivar. In 2007 and 2008, the Sangh targeted Christians again in Kandhamal district, resulting in over a hundred deaths, the burning of 6,000 houses, and 300 churches, displacing 60,000 people.
The Christian community expressed dissatisfaction with the courts, as the Supreme Court initially stated that the murders were meant to "teach a lesson" to the missionary. Strong protests from the Christian community compelled the Supreme Court to retract those hurtful words in its final judgment.
