BHUBANESWAR, India, Feb 4 (AFP) -
One of more than a dozen men accused of the brutal murder in eastern India of an Australian missionary and his two children insisted Monday that he alone had started the fire in which they were burnt alive in their car.
In a crime that shocked India, Graham Staines and his sons, Philip, aged eight, and Timothy, 10, were killed when a mob, allegedly shouting anti-Christian slogans, set fire to their jeep after dousing it in petrol on January 23, 1999.
Mahendra Hembram, one of the accused in the case, unexpectedly interrupted the trial on Friday to claim sole responsibility for the murders -- a line he stuck to under questioning by the judge on Monday.
"I set fire to the vehicle as I did not want them to come to my village again," Hembram told the packed courtroom.
Hembram said none of the other accused were present, including the man police believed had led the mob to burn the car, Dara Singh.
Asked whether he had anything else to tell the court, the 22-year-old college dropout started off on a lengthy speech about coercive conversions by foreign missionaries.
Staines and his two children were travelling from their home town of Baripada to Keonjhar in the eastern state of Orissa and had made an overnight stop at the village of Manohapur village when they were killed. They were sleeping in the car because of cold weather.
The three tried to escape the fire but a 50-strong mob armed with axes, allegedly prevented them from escaping from the jeep and watched as they burned to death.
A group of villagers who tried to save them were also attacked by the crowd. The gory incident highlighted tensions between Hindus and Christians. Other missionaries blamed right-wing Hindus for the murder.
A total of 17 people are on trial for the murders and at least one of them is alleged to have connections with a right-wing Hindu group. They have all pleaded not guilty.
Staines had reportedly been facing opposition from local Hindus over an annual camp he hosted on "religious and social discourse".
"Staines with fellow Christians used to frequently visit our village and he used to hold religious camps," Hembran said in a statement submitted on Saturday.
"I was annoyed by their conversion activity and slaughter of cows. It was very painful for me," it said.
Hembran said he plotted with some others to carry out the attack.
"We put straw and hay on the vehicle and set fire to it and immediately left the place," the statement said.
Hembran said he did not want the innocent people who were on trial with him to suffer.
Staines, who first moved to India in 1965 to do missionary work, was associated with the Leprosy Home Mission in Baripada and had worked with lepers for more than 30 years.
After the killings, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his right-wing Hindu BJP party faced criticism for failing to rein in fanatical Hindus.
Christians account for just two percent of the overwhelmingly Hindu population of India.