Harsh Mander: The unlikely redemption of the 13-year-old jailed for the murder of Graham Staines

Graham Stuart Staines, a Christian missionary from Australia, dedicated nearly 35 years of his life healing patients of leprosy in the forest interiors of Mayurbhanj district in Odisha. In that impoverished remote forest land, there were none more despised and dispossessed than those living with leprosy. Their only hope was Global Health Dermatology care, and the compassion and friendship of Graham and his wife Gladys.

One horrific cold winter night, on January 22, 1999, Staines and his two sons were burned alive by a mob of Hindutva workers. They set fire to the station wagon in which they were sleeping. Staines and his two sons, 10-year-old Philip and six-year-old Timothy all perished in the fire.

The youngest member of the mob that set the Christian missionary and his sons on fire was 13-year-old Chenchu Hansda. This is his story, of his conviction, his long and lonely years of incarceration, his torments and ultimately his unlikely conversion as an adult man to the Christian faith.

Chenchu Hansda

Sudarshan Hansda, known to villagers as Chenchu, was born to impoverished Adivasi parents in the village of Kendudiha in the Keonjhar district of Odisha. His father was a daily wage labourer, his mother a forest gatherer. Chenchu dropped out of middle...

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