An Indian court yesterday sentenced a Hindu hard-liner to death and 12 other men to life in prison for burning to death Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999. Dara Singh, an activist against conversions, was ordered to the gallows for leading the crowd that torched the station wagon in which Staines and his children were sleeping at a village in the eastern state of Orissa.
| I thought Singh was a Sikh name? |
Staines, a 57-year-old missionary, had worked in India since 1965 treating leprosy patients. His widow Gladys Staines has publicly forgiven the killers and continued her late husbandâs charity work in Orissa. She said she had no opinion on the death sentence handed down by the court in Orissaâs capital Bhubaneswar. âBut forgiveness and the consequences of the crime should not be mixed up. Other than that, I have no further comment,â she said.
| "The death penalty does cut down on recidivism, though..." |
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