{"id":5256,"date":"2025-08-28T07:07:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T07:07:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T07:07:03","slug":"murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderer of Missionary Family Freed from Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On April 16, 2025, prison authorities in India&rsquo;s Odisha state released one of the men who had murdered Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, in January 1999. Mahendra Hembram, who set fire to the car in which the family was sleeping, was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 but was granted early release for good behavior. Hembram&rsquo;s release was celebrated publicly by Hindu nationalist organizations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who called it &ldquo;a good day for us.&rdquo; The convicted murderer was greeted at the gate of the prison by crowds chanting Hindu slogans and welcoming him as a hero. The organizer of the attack, who was convicted of two other murders as well, was denied early release in May. Front-line workers expressed concern that the celebrations surrounding Hembram&rsquo;s release signal an increasingly hostile tone across the nation that is emboldening Hindu extremism.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/india\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in India and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2869\/india\/\" target=\"_blank\">Post a prayer for India on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 16, 2025, prison authorities in India&#8217;s Odisha state released one of the men who had murdered Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, in January 1999. Mahendra Hembram, who set fire to the car in which the family was sleeping, was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 but was granted early release for good behavior. Hembram&#8217;s release was celebrated publicly by Hindu nationalist organizations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who called it &#8220;a good day for us.&#8221; The convicted murderer was greeted at the gate of the prison by crowds chanting Hindu slogans and welcoming him as a hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","tag-india","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Murderer of Missionary Family Freed from Prison - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Murderer of Missionary Family Freed from Prison - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On April 16, 2025, prison authorities in India&#039;s Odisha state released one of the men who had murdered Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, in January 1999. Mahendra Hembram, who set fire to the car in which the family was sleeping, was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 but was granted early release for good behavior. Hembram&#039;s release was celebrated publicly by Hindu nationalist organizations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who called it &quot;a good day for us.&quot; The convicted murderer was greeted at the gate of the prison by crowds chanting Hindu slogans and welcoming him as a hero.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-28T07:07:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"vomtechsupport\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"vomtechsupport\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/#\/schema\/person\/5ff286fd5505fccd2d5ebfd9d4203216\"},\"headline\":\"Murderer of Missionary Family Freed from Prison\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-28T07:07:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\"},\"wordCount\":184,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/assets.persecution.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/VOM-Stories-iCommit-PlaceholderV2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"India\"],\"articleSection\":[\"iCommitToPray\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/murderer-of-missionary-family-freed-from-prison\/\",\"name\":\"Murderer of Missionary Family Freed from Prison - 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