Bhubaneswar: A special court in Odisha has acquitted Buddhadeb Naik, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the brutal killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons in 1999.
The CBI had identified Naik as an associate of Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, the main perpetrator of the attack. It was alleged that Naik participated in the mob violence that burnt the Australian family alive on the night of January 22, 1999 when they were asleep in their vehicle at Manoharpur village in Kendujhar district.
After the incident, Naik went into hiding for 20 years. The CBI finally tracked and arrested him from Mayurbhanj district in September 2019. As Naik was apprehended decades after the initial trials concluded, his case was designated to undergo independent judicial evaluation under a separate trial process.
During the trial in ADJ-IV-cum Special CBI Court, Naik denied knowing Dara Singh or Graham Staines. The 19 witnesses examined during the trial did not testify that Naik was present on the spot when the crime took place, his counsel Bana Mohanty said.
Dara Singh, the main accused in the triple murder, was convicted and sentenced to death by a CBI court in 2003. The Orissa High Court, however, commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005 which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had also asked the Odisha government to decide the remission plea of Singh. On September 17 this year, the Odisha government informed the apex court that its State Sentence Review Board rejected the premature release (remission) plea of Singh.
The killings had triggered outrage across India and abroad. Naik’s acquittal follows Odisha government’s decision to reject a remission plea by Dara Singh.