New India — where jailers garland prisoners

Does Keonjhar jail superintendent Manaswini Nayak feel that Hembram’s good conduct as a prisoner wiped out his premeditated act of depriving three others of their lives, two of whom were children aged eight and 10?

What does ‘good conduct in jail’ mean when the prisoner has been convicted of burning alive a man and his two little children (aged 10 and eight)? Can the one who committed such a crime, not in the heat of the moment, but with premeditation, be given the benefit of remission of sentence?

The concept of remission is based on the premise that even those who commit crimes against humanity may undergo remorse and be transformed while in jail, thereby deserving freedom. But where’s the evidence that Mahendra Hembram, sentenced to life for the killing of Graham Staines and his sons in 1999, repented for his crime? On the contrary. The first thing the 50-year-old Hembram said on his premature release from an Odisha jail on April 16, was that he had been framed in an ‘incident related to religious conversion’.

Hembram was lying and he knew it. In his letter to his sister-in-law (used as evidence against him), Hembram wrote that he conspired with Hindutva vigilante Dara Singh to kill Staines, as he was angered at the way the Australian missionary was ‘corrupting’ Adivasi culture by distributing brassieres and sanitary napkins to Adivasi women. The 24-year-old also wrote that the sight of fellow tribals eating beef on Christmas Day angered him and Singh.

Staines was burnt to death a month after Christmas.

This was no ordinary killing. The Supreme Court judgment cites eye witnesses describing how the mob placed straw under the station wagon in which Staines was sleeping along with his sons. Armed with lathis and flaming rods, they set the straw on fire, smashed the vehicle’s windows, and prevented villagers who could hear the screams of the children, from approaching. They beat back the father and sons who were trying to get out, and, as the car started moving forward on its own, they placed a log to stop it.

Of the 13 convicted by the trial court, Hembram was the only one whose conviction, along with that of prime accused Singh, was upheld by the high court and Supreme Court. Like Singh, he fled after the murders. The police officer who traced him is now the DGP of Odisha Police. 

What must DGP Y B Khurania have felt seeing the man he managed to hunt down after a year’s effort, being not just welcomed on release but also given a hero’s farewell from jail? Uniformed officers were photographed standing beside a garlanded Hembram outside the jail. 

The kind of farewell he got is why it becomes necessary to recall the terrifying details of Hembram’s crime. The welcome was expected; after all, the same Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) who welcomed his release, had, just two years back, welcomed the men convicted of gang-raping a Muslim woman in Gujarat in 2002, and killing her daughter and 13 other family members. Sentenced to life, Bilkis Bano’s rapists and murderers were also prematurely released on grounds of ‘good behaviour in jail’. Turned out they’d spent a substantial part of their jail term out of jail rather than in it, thanks to a government whose ideology they shared.

Hembram wasn’t as lucky. He spent 25 years in jail. But last June, the government in whose hands lay his freedom, changed. The party that came to power shared his visceral hatred for Christian missionaries. The new chief minister had, while in the Opposition, demonstrated in support of Singh.

After the change in government, release was just a formality. It won’t be long before Singh, serving three life sentences (for the murders of Staines and his sons; of another Christian priest, and a Muslim trader) is also prematurely released. Will he also be given a warm farewell?

Our jail system is not known for treating prisoners as human beings; humiliation and cruelty are the norm, as is evident from the regularity with which courts direct jail authorities to allow prisoners basic amenities. So, when jailers garland prisoners before their release, one wonders why. Does Keonjhar jail superintendent Manaswini Nayak feel that Hembram’s good conduct as a prisoner wiped out his premeditated act of depriving three others of their lives, two of whom had barely seen life? Or does Nayak believe, like Supreme Court judges P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan did, that Singh and Hembram were ‘teaching a lesson’ to Staines for converting tribals? That was the reason the two judges upheld the Odisha High Court’s decision to commute Singh’s death penalty to life imprisonment. By then, a judicial commission of inquiry had already concluded that there was no evidence that Staines had converted tribals.

Public outrage forced the judges to change their justification. That was in 2011. Now, we are in a ‘New India’.

(Jyoti Punwani is a senior journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.