BHUBANESWAR: Rabindra Kumar Pal, also known as Dara Singh, who is serving life sentence for the ghastly killings of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in 1999, does not feature in the list of 19 life convicts who have been granted premature release by Odisha government recently.
Sources said the State Sentence Review Board during its meeting on July 6 examined the cases of 56 life convicts, including Singh, and forwarded its recommendations to the government for approval. Of the 56, the government granted premature release of 19 life convicts and either deferred or rejected the petition of others, official sources said.
The petitions deferred, which also includes Singh, will be taken up for review after three months during the Board’s next quarterly meeting. The convicts whose petitions were rejected can file a fresh one after a year, said a senior official. On March 19, 2025, the Supreme Court had directed the Odisha government to consider and decide Singh’s plea for remission within six weeks. At the latest hearing, the top court had expressed hope that the state would take a final decision before the next hearing on August 19.
Sources said the 19 convicts, who were earlier awarded life imprisonment for various heinous offences, were lodged in jails in different parts of the state like Bhubaneswar, Koraput, Sambalpur, Angul, Bhanjanagar, Baripada, Balasore and Keonjhar.