India gives top award to widow of Australian missionary

India has given one of its top civilian awards to Australian Gladys Staines, a social worker and widow of missionary Graham Staines who was killed by a Hindu mob along with their two sons in 1999, reports said Tuesday. The Padma Shri award given to Staines was one of two conferred on foreigners this year, the other going to author and former British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Mark Tully.
The Hindu newspaper said Staines received the award for "remaining steadfast in her devotion to care for people affected by leprosy, despite her personal tragedy".
"I feel honoured and overwhelmed at the same time," said Staines, 54, who was dressed in a traditional blue silk sari for the awards ceremony in the presidential palace late Monday.
"When people come to me and express solidarity with me, I feel that though I have lost my family, I have found another one in all the Indians."
She also told reporters that she and her daughter, Esther, were looking forward to "being back home" in India's eastern state of Orissa. They plan to spend a month there.
Staines and her husband Graham had spent more than 30 years working with leprosy patients in Baripada district in the eastern state of Orissa.
In January 1999 Graham and his two sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, eight, were burnt to death by a mob of Hindu fanatics who accused him of forcibly converting poor Hindus to Christianity.
The three were asleep in their jeep when the attack took place.
They tried to escape the flames but the mob, led by Hindu hard-liner Ravindra Pal, alias Dara Singh, and armed with axes, prevented them.
Despite the tragedy Staines stayed on in India with her daughter, overseeing the completion of a hospital for leprosy patients in Orissa. She left for Australia only last year.
In September 2003 Singh and 17 others were sentenced to death by a local court. Immediately after the verdict Staines said she had forgiven the killers.
"With God's help I have been able to forgive them. Though it was not easy to begin with, later the courage came from somewhere and I was able to overcome all those feelings," Staines said.
"Though she (Esther) misses her brothers and father, who I think would have played an important role of guarding her, she has emerged as a strong child," she added.