BHUBANESWAR, India - Thirteen villagers on trial in eastern India for burning alive an Australian missionary and his young sons have gone on a hunger strike demanding the judge's removal, a defense lawyer said Monday.
Hearings were adjourned after seven of the defendants — including the man accused of inciting a crowd that set fire to the missionary's jeep — were admitted to a prison hospital in eastern Orissa state, said lawyer Bana Behari Mohanty.
The thirteen are accused of taking part in the killing of Graham Stewart Staines, 58, and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8. The three were sleeping in their jeep outside a church in Manoharpur, a remote village in Orissa, on Jan. 23, 1999 when villagers began beating on the vehicle and set it on fire, witnesses said.
Dara Singh, who allegedly incited the mob, has written a letter to the chief justice of the state's highest court that accuses the judge presiding over the trial of being biased and says the defendants will refuse food until he is replaced, the lawyer said.
"We firmly believe that we will not get justice from the trial court under the present judge," he quoted Singh as saying, without elaborating.
The prisoners were only accepting lemon juice, said the superintendent of the prison where they are being held, P.K. Patra.
At the time of the incident, anti-Christian sentiment had been on the rise in the region, and the killing of the Australian missionary followed several other attacks on Christians. Christians comprise about 2 percent of India's more than 1 billion predominantly Hindu people.
If convicted, the accused could face death by hanging. The trial began last March.