BHUBANESWAR: A prosecution witness deposing before the court of the District and Sessions Judge, Khurda, in the Graham Staines murder case has identified four of the accused persons, including prime accused Dara Singh.
Lablal Tudu, an inhabitant of Manoharpur village of Keonjhar district where Staines and his two minor sons were burnt alive by an armed crowd on the night of January 22, 1999, identified Dara alias Ravindra Kumar Pal, Thuram Ho, Daya Patra and Rajat Kumar Das as the four who were involved in the attack.
He said all four were present when the vehicle of the Australian missionary was torched.
Tudu said Staines and his two children were sleeping inside the vehicle that night. He was woken up by his mother at midnight when he heard the loud noise outside.
He came out and found three or four persons standing outside his house. He also saw a crowd of people, armed with lathis, bows and arrows and holding torches, raining blows on the two vehicles parked outside the church, he said.
Some of the attackers then picked up bundles of straw from the yard near his house and put them beneath the empty vehicle and set it afire. They then proceeded to torch the other vehicle even as he heard the screams of the two children trapped inside with their father.