Dara Singh

Dara Singh (born Rabindra Kumar Pal; 2 October 1962) is an Indian convicted murderer and a Bajrang Dal activist.

Singh had been convicted in the murder of Muslim trader Shaikh Rehman, severing his arms before setting him on fire at Padiabeda village in Karanjia sub-division of Mayurbhanj district.

Singh was arrested after a year-long chase in January 2000 after the murders of Graham Staines and his sons, and is now serving his life sentence in prison.

Early life Dara Singh was born as Rabindra Kumar Pal, He was also an activist of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). The Police reported that Dara Singh was an active member of the Go suraksha samiti, an initiative financed and implemented by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Singh was also involved in the BJP and known to have campaigned for the party during the 1998 elections and also been involved in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) rallies and camps. Singh was also alleged to have worked for the BJP during the 1991 elections in Patna.

Criminal activities

Dara Singh's base of operations was the relatively affluent Padiabeda village in Mayurbhanj district

Because cow slaughter is banned in Orissa, Dara Singh often intercepted trucks transporting cows to West Bengal, releasing the animals and setting the trucks on fire. All his targets were Muslim truck drivers. He redistributed the cows to the local people; in this way he achieved a degree of popularity among the tribal people and became a political figure. Some of the villagers gave him shelter after he was on the run for more than a year during the Graham Staines case. He had a small loyal band that was increasingly involved in violent opposition to what they perceived as anti-Hindu forces.

In September 1998, a cattle truck was looted and torched, and the trucker's assistant, Shaikh Imam was beaten to death in Godabhanga Ghati in the Mayurbhanj district. Singh was charged in this case and eventually acquitted in October 2006 due to lack of sufficient evidence and hostile witnesses.

In September 1999 Arul Das, a Catholic priest, was shot and killed with an arrow in Jamabani village in Mayurbhanj district by a gang led by Dara Singh; Das was fleeing the building, which had been set on fire.

On 26 November 1999 more than 20 men armed with machetes attacked Shaikh Rahman, a Muslim garment merchant, in Padiabeda village, beating him and severing his hands. His body was then set alight and incinerated to prevent his family members from recovering it, and his garment stall was also set on fire. In October 2007, Singh was convicted of the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, while the 23 others were acquitted on grounds of insufficient evidence. Several small booklets with titles like Mono Ku Chhui Gola (He Has Touched Our Hearts), or Mu Dara Singh Kahuchi (This is Dara Singh Speaking), eulogising Singh and criticising the activities of Staines and other Christian missionaries, were circulated in the region. Wadhwa cleared Staines of allegations that he had forcibly converted locals. However, the National Commission for minorities (NCM) disputed the commission's finding and highlighted Singh's connections with the Bajrang Dal. The NCM also suggested that the killers were from Bajrang Dal, because the attackers chanted "long live the Bajrang Dal" before the attacks. Wadhwa condemned Dara Singh, but exonerated Bajrang Dal, the RSS and the BJP for providing the intellectual motivation and sustenance for the crime to be cold-bloodedly carried out.

Arrest At least 11 squads of a special task force of the state police constantly patrolled some of the toughest jungle terrains of Mayurbhanj-Keonjhar region for over an year in search of him after the Staines murder. He always had the support of the local tribal people and was always on the move. The police and CBI put a bounty of ₹8 lakhs on his head, but this did not help. The police started "Operation Confinement" to confine Singh and cut off his escape roads in the jungle. The police arrested Dara Singh after a year-long chase on the night of 31 January 2000.

In May 2005 the Orissa High Court set aside the death sentence, stating that it could not be demonstrated that any specific action by Singh himself had caused the deaths.

In August 2005 Singh filed a special leave petition with the Supreme Court, seeking acquittal. He asserted that his case was based on hearsay and circumstantial evidence, claiming that he had not led the killings.

On 21 January 2011 the Supreme Court upheld the Orissa High Court's life imprisonment sentence for Dara Singh and his accomplice Mahender Hembram. The Supreme Court dismissed the CBI's call for the death penalty, explaining that the death penalty could only be imposed in the "rarest of rare" cases.