By Naresh Sir | Director of Education People First
Greetings to all of you.
May I introduce myself I am Naresh sir the Director of Education here at People First
I want to thank you for donating to our appeal Chandan needs a little extra help. It is true to say the appeal did not raise as much as we had hoped but I want you to know we are able to buy some new clothing and some extra text books for Chandan to help his studies.
Chandan was born in Gaya Central Jail six years ago, his mother after years of abuse finally snapped and stabbed her husband for which she was convicted of murder .
The conditions in the jails of Bihar are poor, just how poor can be seen from this 2015 report,
A couple of years ago, prisoner Devi [name changed] of the Seikhpura prison in south Bihar was alone in the woman ward, when Devendra a jail staff member, came in and groped her. According to Devi, she rushed to the gate only to find that two other inmates (Sanjay and Rama ) were standing outside the gate. She says the two were “standing there with the intention of guarding the gate to facilitate the rape.” Despite her many requests, the jailor refused to meet her. Ms. Devi says no action has been taken so far, and her medical examination was conducted after a delay of 14 days.
Allegations are plenty in many of Bihar’s 58 prisons, according to a voluminous report commissioned by the Bihar State Legal Services Authority (BSLSA) and endorsed by the senior-most judge of the State. The 1,800-page report, perhaps the first of its kind to make it to the public domain, has graphically described many cases of custodial torture.
On the basis of testimonials, five reasons are cited as “area of concern” in the cases of torture.
Those are “delay of nearly two weeks in conducting medical examination; delay of nearly two years in filing of charge sheet and two years in framing of charges.” Besides, the victims told an investigation committee that they could not “afford private lawyers;” legal aid panel lawyers refused to fight cases of custodial rape and torture. Moreover, the “victim [is] unaware of the case status and the lawyer,” says the survey titled ‘Status Report-2015, Based on Survey, Inspection and Analysis.’ The committee visited 58 jails and interviewed 30,070 prisoners, including 26 terminally ill and 102 mentally challenged.
The number of prisoners in need of medical attention was 176. Besides custodial torture and denial of justice, the report focuses on the physical condition of the inmates, the condition of juveniles and aged prisoners, remission and prison punishments.
“A majority of the prisoners said they were brought from police stations to the court for production. In the court, they were kept in the court lockup and were not taken to the magistrate,” according to a case scenario. Another scenario under the chapter on inmates’ access to the judicial process says many prisoners were brought from police stations to courts. Then they “were kept standing at the back side of the court room and the magistrate did not interact with them.”
Then, they were sent to “court lock up…kept there for hours and brought to prison.” Going by such testimonials, the report concludes that at least 2,799 prisoners are “in need” of legal aid.
“In most cases, they do not have access to lawyers, [and] there actually exists no mechanism for prisoners to meet lawyers. However, the prisoners are at the centre of the criminal justice system but they are denied access to justice, and this is perhaps true for all jails of the country,” said Smita Chakraburtty, who headed the committee that produced the report on behalf of Human Rights Law Network, a Delhi-based legal aid group.
The report, howsoever commendable, indicates that the State has failed to provide justice to prisoners in many ways. But the senior-most judge of Bihar, Justice V. N. Sinha, as the head of the BSLSA, commissioned the report and even brought it to the public domain. Arguing why he has commissioned the report, Justice Sinha said in the foreword that as the BSLSA chairperson, he was “conscious” of his “responsibilities towards prisoners as they were not only entitled to legal services…but also access to justice” and the BSLSA is required to “at least hear their voice in person.” He, however, acknowledges that justice could not be delivered.
“For a prisoner to step into the Legal Aid Clinic and ask for a lawyer, he has to cross socio-economic and psychological hurdle(s). Given the demography of the prisoners, it is but obvious that the Legal Aid Clinic, though fully functional in its capacity, fail to reach out to each of the prisoners.”
This was published in the newspaper ‘The Hindu”
At the request of the prison authorities Rescue Junction was requested to admit Chandan ( not his real name) for the purposes of care, protection and education.
He is doing well and attending school and visits his mother once a month now, but he needs a lot of support as even the site of the prison gates is traumatic for him.
The thing is, Chandan is not alone, there are many other children still behind bars and if you would like help children like him please have a look at our appeal for Rescue junction on GlobalGiving ( the link is given below)
And thank you for your help and concern
Naresh
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