By Our Correspondent
KEONJHAR/BHUBANESWAR: In a significant development, after serving 25 years in jail, key aid of Dara Singh, 50 year old Mahendra Hembram, a convict in the 1999 high-profile triple murder case of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons, was released from Keonjhar jail in Odisha on Wednesday.
A total of 14 people were accused, but 12 were acquitted. Mahendra was arrested in 1999, and Dara Singh was arrested on January 31, 2000. Hembram was sentenced to life imprisonment on September 22, 2003. He was held in several jails before being transferred to Keonjhar Jail on September 28, 2011.
Jailer Manaswini Naik said Mahendra Hembram has been released following a decision by the State Sentence Review Board. The prison directorate informed about it in a letter on Tuesday. He has been released after 25 years because of good behaviour in accordance with the rules.
Hembram claimed he was falsely implicated in a case related to religious conversion.
Hembram and Dara Singh (alias Rabindra Pal Singh) were convicted of the murders of Graham Staines and his sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6). The victims were burned alive on the night of January 21, 1999, in Manoharpur village, Keonjhar district. The attack was allegedly carried out by a mob led by Dara Singh.
