Mayurbhanj: A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials from Kolkata arrested Buddhadev Nayak from Nischintpur village in Bharandia panchayat under Thakurmunda Police limits. Nayak is an associate of notorious Dara Singh; the prime accused in 1999 brutal triple murder of Graham Staines and his two minor sons.
The CBI team raided Buddhadev’s house after getting information about his presence.
Australian Christian missionary Graham Stuart Staines (58) and his two minor sons Philip (10) and Timothy (6) were burnt to death on January 22, 1999, by a mob in Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district. Prime suspect Dara Singh was alleged to have led a mob which burned down the station wagon in which the trio were sleeping.
The Staines family had been in the State for close to 30 years at the time of their death. They had set up a leprosy home in Baripada and mostly worked with tribals. Singh and his group had blamed Graham Staines for forced conversion to marginalized Hindus.
The local Police had arrested Dara Singh almost a year after the incident. Main accused Dara Singh and 12 others were found guilty in the Graham Staines murder case in 2003. In May 2005, the Orissa High Court commuted to life imprisonment the death penalty imposed by the Sessions Court on Dara Singh because it couldn’t be considered as the ‘rarest of rare’ case.
Dara Singh then appealed against his life sentence in the Supreme Court (SC), but his appeal was dismissed and the SC Bench confirmed the High Court judgment in 2011.