The Odisha government has rejected the plea of Dara Singh, serving a life sentence for the 1999 killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons, for premature release from prison.
The decision was taken at a special meeting of the State Sentence Review Board on August 31, officials said on Tuesday. The Board said that, “in view of certain facts and circumstances”, it was not inclined to recommend his premature release at this stage.
The decision came after the Supreme Court, while hearing Singh’s plea seeking release from prison, asked the State government to consider the matter. The case is scheduled to come up before the court on September 17.
Singh, 67, had sought premature release after spending 25 years in prison.
He was convicted for burning Staines, 58, and his sons Philip and Timothy, to death while they were sleeping in a station wagon in Keonjhar district in January 1999.
A trial court in Bhubaneswar had initially sentenced Singh to death. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
(With inputs from PTI)
