By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : Dara Singh, serving a life term for killing Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two small sons in 1999, Saturday filed by proxy his nomination papers as an independent candidate from Orissa’s Ghasipura assembly constituency but these are likely to be rejected, an official said.
“A man named Nityananda Mohanta filed the nomination paper on behalf of Singh,” returning officer Surath Chandra Mallick told IANS.
“The nomination is likely to be rejected because it is not supported by any documents,” he added.
India’s electoral laws bar anyone who has been jailed for two years from contesting elections.
On Jan 22, 1999, a mob led by Dara Singh burnt alive Staines and his two sons, 10-year-old Philip and six-year-old Timothy, while they were asleep in their vehicle in Manoharpur, a village in Keonjhar district.
In September 2003, the district and sessions court of Khurda sentenced Dara Singh to death and handed down life terms to 12 of his associates. The Orissa High Court commuted Singh’s death penalty to life imprisonment in May 2005.
He is lodged in the district jail at Keonjhar, some 235 kms from here.