A farmer who saw armed attackers burn alive an Australian missionary and his two young sons two years ago identified the main accused today as the man who incited the mob.
Paul Murmu, a close associate of Graham Stewart Staines, told Judge Amarnanda Patnaik that he had seen accused Dara Singh and two others attack the missionary's jeep with sticks before his vehicle was set afire.
Staines and his sons, Timothy and Philip, were sleeping in the jeep after a Bible study meeting in Manoharpur village in the eastern state of Orissa on the night of January 22, 1998.
"One among the three (attackers) was sporting a beard and he looked like him," Murmu, 52, testified as he pointed toward Singh, who stood across the courtroom in the dock. Murmu had known Staines for 17 years.
Singh and 13 other people are accused in the murder case. If convicted, they could face death by hanging.
Murmu, who had also worked as a senior pastor with Staines, had accompanied him to Manoharpur in another vehicle that night. Murmu said he was sleeping in a hut near the site of the attack along with Staines' driver, and woke up close to midnight when he heard a loud noise.
Murmu said he saw about 70 people armed with sticks attacking the two jeeps parked near a local church. Three men, including the bearded man, broke the glass window of the jeep in which the priest and his sons were sleeping. They also tried to break the door of the vehicle, but failed, Murmu said.
As the driver ran toward the jeep, he was beaten back by the attackers.
Minutes later, the three men leading the attack placed hay under the jeep and set it on fire, Murmu said. When the flames subsided, Murmu found the charred bodies of Staines and his sons inside the jeep.
Murmu told the court that the mob left, shouting "Jai Bajrangbali and Jai Dara Singh" (Victory for Bajrangbali and victory for Dara Singh). Bajrangbali is a name for the popular monkey-faced Hindu God Hanuman.
Staines' killing followed a series of attacks on churches and Christian missionary institutions that began in 1998 in this predominantly Hindu nation. Hindu fanatics allegedly attacked churches after whipping up a campaign against missionaries for allegedly converting illiterate and poor Hindus to Christianity.
Christians comprise about two per cent of India's more than 1 billion people.
Another witness, Basi Tudu, a 40-year-old woman, told the judge yesterday that an armed mob of nearly 60 people prevented her from coming out of her home after she was awakened by a bursting sound.
However, she could see from her house the attackers crowding around a vehicle in which Staines and his sons were sleeping.
"Soon after, I saw the vehicle on fire," Tudu recalled.
Tudu told the court that two of the accused, Ojen Hansda and Chenchu, were from her village.
Teenage Chenchu, who uses one name, has already been jailed for 14 years by a juvenile court, which convicted him in a separate trial on murder charges. He also was part of the mob.