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More than two decades after the horrific murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, one of the youngest members of the mob responsible has since embraced the Christian faith himself.
Sudarshan Hansda was only 13 when he joined a crowd of about 60 men who attacked Staines and his children in their vehicle in Manoharpur, a village in eastern India, UCA News reported.
The 1999 attack, driven by hostility toward Christian missionary work, resulted in the deaths of Staines and his two sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6. Flames engulfed the family’s station wagon, and the three died trapped inside.
Now 39, Hansda has chosen to be baptized in the same faith that the Staines family practiced and served.
“Not because a pastor influenced me,” he told UCA News, “but… my inner voice told me to shun violence, and I turned to the church seeking forgiveness.”
Following his arrest days after the 1999 killing, Hansda was tried as a juvenile and spent nearly a decade behind bars. But the most punishing chapter of his life, he said, came after prison.
In the years following his release, he lost his entire immediate family — his parents, his sisters, his newborn son, and eventually his wife. Overwhelmed by grief, he spiraled into instability and despair.
That anguish eventually brought him to the doorstep of the Baptist church in Manoharpur, the very place where Staines had ministered before his death. There, Hansda said, he found the peace he had long sought.
He began attending services regularly, ultimately choosing to be baptized in April 2025.
“[I attend] service every Sunday, and I find peace there,” he said.
Hansda, now remarried and father to two young sons, finds support within the modest Christian community of about 50 families living alongside a largely Hindu population in the village.
“He has come a long way, braving all the odds, and now finds hope and happiness in the church, and we all care for him and his family,” local pastor Ralia Soren told UCA News.
Hansda now works as a laborer and farmer, and his story has caught the attention of former associates. One fellow convict, recently released after serving 25 years, approached him to ask about his conversion.
“I told him it was my own decision,” he told UCA News, “and that I find solace and peace in the church.”
