Gladys Staines

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 21: The Supreme Court judgment upholding the life term of Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh has brought back memories of that spine chilling incident 12 years ago at Manoharpur, a tribal hamlet in faraway Keonjhar.

The horrors of that night may forever remain etched in the minds of those who witnessed it, but the hope remains that Australian missionary Graham Staines’ good work will outlive the horrors.

Shubhankar Ghosh, then a college teacher, was one of those who heard the agonising shrieks and cries for help of Graham Staines and his two minor sons, who were roasted alive when their station wagon was torched by a fanatical mob at the village on the night of January 22.

“We went to bed around 9.45 p.m. after the slide shows,” recalled Ghosh who had accompanied the missionary to the village where a “jungle camp” was being organised. The mob, according to him, came after midnight and locked from outside the door to the house where Ghosh and another Australian Gilbert Venz were asleep.

“They were 60 to 70 people in the group. They left an hour or so later after doing what they wanted to. We tried hard to break open the door so that we could save them. But it was just not possible. I felt so helpless,” said Ghosh, who gave up teaching in 2006 and took to working full time for the charitable institutions set up in and around Baripada town by the Evangelical Missionary Society and nurtured by Staines and his wife.

By the time Ghosh and his Australian companion managed to come out of the house, it was all over. “The wagon was still in flames. It took us over an hour to douse the flames with buckets of water,” recalled Ghosh who still shudders at the memory of what they saw inside.

The images may still haunt the former teacher, but he has decided to concentrate on the more constructive work of strengthening the humane legacy of Staines, which is visible in the shape of the leprosy home at Murgabadi, two km from Baripada town, and the community hostel for poor and homeless children at Raja Basa. There are now 70 inmates at the leprosy home. Once cured, the inmates of the home are sent to a rehabilitation centre. The Evangelical Missionary Society also runs a girls’ hostel in Rairangpur, 80km from Baripada.

Ghosh works in close consultation with Gladys Staines, the widow of the slain missionary who spends most of her time in Australia nowadays, but is equally keen to take her husband’s good work forward. “We keep in touch and she keeps contributing to the cause,” said Ghosh, articulating the hope that Staines’ humanitarian work would outlive the tragedy.