With the release of the former MP Anand Mohan along with 26 others, demand for release of some more prisoners languishing in Bihar jails for decades is gaining momentum in Bihar.
Anand Mohan, who was convicted in the killing of the then Gopalganj DM G Krishnaiah (IAS), was released from Saharsa jail on Thursday morning.
Supporters of the CPI-ML on Friday staged a day-long dharna here at Legislators’ Club demanding an immediate release of six activists convicted under TADA in 2003. A delegation of CPIML legislators met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar twice recently but failed to get any assurance in this regard.
“While 27 prisoners, who have completed 14 or more years in jail were released, six rural poor activists from the Arwal district who are in jail for more than 22 years are left out,” lamented state CPI ML secretary Kunal.
All of them have grown old and sick. Of the six activists, three are already in hospital, he added.
Calling it a “blatant travesty of justice”, Kunal said that there was “no judicial obstruction in the way” for the release of the rest of the prisoners. Out of a total of 14 prisoners, six have already died in jail. One of them, Tribhuvan Sharma, was released by the Patna High Court in 2020.
Three years have elapsed since then, one more TADA inmate passed away in jail. Now, he said “the selective release of prisoners has inflicted more injustice” on these victims who have already spent more than two decades of their lives in Gaya Central Jail.
Besides the demand for the release of six activists, the CPIML has raised the issue of releasing all the oppressed poor and downtrodden people who have been locked up “unfairly under the prohibition Act in Bihar jails”.
On the other hand, Bihar’s chief secretary Amir Subhani categorically denied that the law was tweaked to facilitate the release of Anand Mohan. It was done under a normal procedure, he told media persons.
He said that Anand Mohan has served a life term of 15 years, nine months and 25 days and with the “parihar ”(good conduct) period it came to 22 years and 13 days, Subhani told the media.
Contradicting the government’s claim of his good conduct in Saharsa jail, Amitabh K Das, Retd IPS (1994) released a copy of the FIR lodged against Anand Mohan to the media. According to FIR, some mobile phone sets with sims, chargers and incriminating documents were found in the JP ward of the jail where Anand Mohan was lodged during a surprise raid jointly conducted by the district magistrate (DM) and superintendent of police (SP) on the jail premises. The then jail superintendent had lodged an FIR against Anand Mohan on October 23, 2021.
Another demand to release a former MP from Maharajganj parliamentary constituency in Bihar, Prabhunath Singh, who is currently serving life term in Jharkhand jail, has been made by BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Singh Rudy. Welcoming the release of Anand Mohan, Rudy said Prabhunath Singh too is a “victim of sponsored conspiracy”.
The former MP was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh Court for his connection with the murder of the then Masrakh (assembly segment in Bihar) MLA Ashok Singh, who was killed on May 23, 2017.
Prabhunath Singh, a two-time MLA, represented Maharajganj in the Lok Sabha for four times (since 1998-2014). He was elected MLA for the first time in 1985.