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 Nalin Verma The author is The Statesman’s Patna-based Special Representative.
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When Kundan Krishnan and his commandos emerged from
Chapra divisional jail on 30 March, victory was writ large on their
faces. Operation “End Siege” was over. The young Superintendent of
Police and his carbine-toting team had gunned down six errant prisoners
to regain control of the jail besieged by the inmates for four days.
“I completed the task assigned to me,” said the SP.
The police action in the Chapra jail has raised
many questions which the guardians of law find hard to answer. Prison
authorities escorted by the police entered the jail at midnight on
27 March to shift five inmates to the Bhagalpur and Buxar jails. The
authorities had orders from the Inspector-General (Prisons) to shift
the “five hardcore criminals”.
Relatives of the prisoners killed allege the police
spent three hours inside hunting for the five men to gun them down
selectively. When asked why the prisoners were being shifted at midnight,
Bihar Prison Minister Ashok Choudhary said: “They were dreaded criminals.
Shifting them at any other time may have created more trouble for
the administration.” Mrs Kaur said the police action was a lesson
for prisoners challenging the authority of law.
Of course, all the five men killed on 30 March had
committed various crimes. But were they as dreaded as Rajen Tiwary,
Munna Shukla, Surajbhan and Sunil Pandey (all MLAs) housed in different
jails of Bihar?
Tiwary’s name spreads terror in north Bihar. The
MLA from Govindganj is an accused in 30 cases of murder, robbery,
hold-ups and dacoity.
Shukla and Tiwary also campaigned for a candidate
for the Patna Municipal Corporation election. “These criminals carry
the prison with them,” commented an observer. What action are the
prison authorities contemplating against them? Neither the IG (Prisons)
nor the prison minister is ready to answer. Shukla, an inmate of the
Muzaffarpur divisional jail, hired dancers for a party inside the
jail in August last year to entertain himself and his invitees. An
English periodical published a photograph showing Shukla gyrating
with one of the dancers. This got the prison administration thinking
and it began the process of shifting him to Bhagalpur jail. But Shukla
procured a court order staying his transfer.
Pandey disappeared with his police escorts for three
days while returning to Sasaram jail from the Arra court in September
2000. The prison administration got panicky. When he resurfaced, Pandey
said he fell ill on the way and had to be taken for medical treatment.
The prison minister said: “We took the incident seriously and wrote
to the Director-General of Police. But the DGP did not act.” Visitors
at Beur Central Jail in Patna have often seen Surajbhan occupying
the prison superintendent’s chair and holding a durbar.
There is ample evidence to prove that the likes
of Surajbhan, Tiwary, Shukla and Pandey use prison officials and wardens
to procure luxurious items for them. They organise parties, bottles
of premium brand whisky, rum and beer are seen littered outside Beur
jail the day after.
At times, a cleansing drive by an enterprising officer
yields many surprises. A pro-reform District Magistrate of Patna,
Amit Khare, raided the Beur jail in 1999, recovering mobiles, disc
antenna, colour TV sets, ganja, liquor, pornographic films and condoms.
These belonged to the “dons” and “fodder mafiosi” lodged inside the
jail. But the prison administration did not bother to do a follow-up.
Many undertrial dons even got married in jail and later sired children
there. Rajen Tiwary is one of them. He has been in “judicial custody”
for three years for the Bihar minister’s murder and got married last
year. Now he has a son. Tiwary and his like visit their families at
will while in judicial custody. Mrs Kaur feels overcrowding of prisons
is the biggest problem for the prison administration. She says there
are 36,000 prisoners in Bihar’s jails against the allotted capacity
of 18,000. But does this overcrowding affect the “dons”? Surajbhan
occupies two rooms inside Beur jail. These dons live like kings but
their poor and less influential inmates go without proper food and
healthcare.
The condition of the women prisoners is worse. This
correspondent saw many women in Phulwari Shareef jail languishing
for months for petty offences. Abandoned by their families and left
to fend for themselves, they have no one to provide them legal support.
Among them was Anita Devi, a 24-year-old married woman with a three-year-old
son in her lap. A resident of Dumka in Jharkhand, she landed in jail
last September on a complaint lodged by her husband that she stole
Rs 500 from his pocket. And since then, she has been in jail. Anita
refused to appeal for bail out of disgust and because she is poor.
The prison minister pleads helplessness. “We cannot release those
like Anita because they are in judicial custody. We try our best to
ensure food and security for them.”
For the present, what shocks the common man is what
lead the police to resort to such controversial means to “end the
siege” on Chapra jail when they are helpless and clueless about ending
the dons’ siege on the prisons.
An official sums up the equation nicely: “Those
five inmates of Chapra jail had not grown to the status and stature
of the don-turned MLAs. So, they had to pay with their lives.”
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"The controversial
end to the siege on Chapra
jail fails to convey the message that police and prison authorities
can act without fear or favour in Bihar. Had that been the case, historysheeters-turned
MLAs would not be frolicking lords as undertrial prisoners."
He received a pat
on his back for his “act of bravery” by his DIG, MA Kazmi; the Prison
Superintendent, Harjot Kaur, other IAS and IPS officers. But was this
really a brave act? Was everything right with Operation “End Siege”?
Do the Bihar police and the administration have the guts to establish
rule of law in the jails of Bihar without fear or favour? Can the
police mete out the same treatment to Surajbhan, Munna Shukla, Rajen
Tiwary and other historysheeters-turned MLAs who lord it over the
jails?
Sanjay Rai, Wakil
Rai, Sashibhushan Singh, Jatashankar Singh and Akshaybat Singh objected,
saying the order to shift them at midnight violated jail manual provisions.
They drove the authorities out, locked the jail from the inside and
wrested control. After three days, heavily armed policemen led by
the SP barged in through the rear wall to “end the siege” and “establish
rule of law” inside the prison. Police claimed the 1,200 inmates fired
on them, compelling them to retaliate. The “gunbattle” lasted for
three hours, killing five people – those who were to be shifted. Was
this selective murder or an encounter? One more person died from his
injuries the next day. Police claimed the inmates engaged them in
a three-hour “shootout” but Mr Krishnan did not produce any weapons
used by the inmates to fire at the police.
Surajbhan, a Samata Party-backed MLA from Mokama, is the “don” of
his area and has at least 35 cases of murder and dacoity against him.
Munna Shukla is the main accused in the murder of former Bihar minister
Brijbihari Prasad. He has roughly 30 cases of murder and robbery against
him. Pandey, an MLA from a central Bihar constituency, has about 30
cases of murder against him. Known as a “sharp shooter”, he is a terror
in central Bihar. All of them are undertrial prisoners. On 3 April,
a local newspaper carried a front-page photograph showing Tiwary and
Shukla attending a political function with Rabri Devi’s brother and
member of the Legislative Council, Subhas Yadav. Shukla (MLA from
Lalganj) and Tiwary are inmates of Beur Central Jail. Yet, they were
allowed to attend a political meeting at the Scada Business Centre
of the Bihar government. And that, too, in the presence of senior
administrative officers.