Fractured Freedom - A Prison Memoir by Kobad Ghandy

Author:Kobad Ghandy [Ghandy, Kobad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Police and Escorts

Again, if we turn to the police escort system that took us to the courts and hospital nothing could be as bad as in Delhi. When inmates have to be taken to the court, hospital outside or during jail transfers, there is a police escort system that has to be involved to make sure the prisoner does not escape. Depending on the level of the crime that much security would be allocated.

In what I can only put down as an attempt to intimidate, during these trips to court and hospital in Delhi I would always be accompanied by a massive posse of police – four with bulletproof jackets, fifteen-odd with AK-47s, a number of SIs and an overall inspector in-charge. Given my age and health condition this display of force for mere travelling, was entirely unwarranted and a torturous experience. Not only that, the police personnel in Delhi were generally rough, uncouth and corrupt.

I would be driven in a van which had three gates, each locked from the outside, and finally deposited in a suffocating cage just behind the driver’s seat, and locked from the outside. The dons in the high-risk ward said, in summer, they never sat inside the cage, but when I requested likewise on health grounds (in peak summer I would feel faint while travelling, which was evident even to the judge, who commented on my health a number of times) they would not allow me to sit outside. These high levels of ‘security’ continued even after the Delhi court granted me interim bail on health grounds.

Fortunately, I was never handcuffed as that required a court order. Each trip to the court or hospital was a nightmare, and in Delhi’s polluted summers it was probably a major reason for my declining health.

In none of the other states was the police and escort system even a fraction as traumatic as in Delhi. I would usually travel in a jeep or car and with limited police force; in Surat and Punjab they were particularly considerate. I estimated that if one calculated the salary of all the escorts and accompanying police vans the total cost of each trip in Delhi would exceed 50,000. What a waste of peoples’ tax money which could have been better used for the poor.

In addition, at Tihar, I was forced to the jail gates well in advance, and we were made to hang around in the blistering sun until it was announced that my police escort has arrived. Once when I was a little late during peak summer due to dizziness and nausea, 4-5 jail staff (not TSP) came to my cell threatening to beat me if I did not hurry up. When I told them about my health, they became more aggressive mishandling me. When I complained to the superintendent not only did he support his staff, but also punished me by cancelling my mulaqaats for a month for ‘insubordination’ and another month for going late. It was the same superintendent who

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