Elders in jail (Feb.18, 2010)

Free At Last
My second birth, says 98-year-old
SP Sharma
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 17
"This is my second birth", murmured the 98- year-old Harnek Singh as he walked out to freedom from the Bathinda Central Jail this evening. He became emotional when jail Superintendent SP Singh told Harnek Singh in his office room,"You are a free man now".

The old man had been languishing in the jail even after completing the term of imprisonment for being involved in a murder.

Harnek Singh was arrested in September 1979 and was convicted by a court in October 1981. For some time he remained on bail until a higher court confirmed the life term.

No one from Harnek's family came to receive him as he was set free after all these years. His only son had come to meet him a few days ago from his native village of Phaphre Bhaika in Mansa district, but refused to file surety to facilitate his freedom from the prison.

Office-bearers of a Sunam-based NGO, People for Direct Social Action (PDSA), had come to the jail to "adopt" Harnek Singh after reading the report published in The Tribune on Sunday last.

SP Singh, who had initiated the case for the release of Harnek Singh, remarked that with the release of Harnek Singh, "I have a sense of achievement as I have been instrumental in getting someone freedom that was denied to him for more than five years".

The warders and other jail staff members beamed with joy as Harnek Singh walked towards the main iron gate.

Outside the jail gate, Harnek Singh bowed to touch the feet of SP Singh as a thanksgiving gesture and asked the latter to give his phone number so that he could talk to him from time to time. Harnek Singh said he would stay wherever the NGO activists kept him.

SS Dhaliwal, chairman of the NGO, said they would get Harnek Singh medically examined and their effort would be to first meet the panchayat members of his native village and persuade them to take steps to rehabilitate him in his own village. However, if they do not accept him, the NGO would send him to some good old-age home and bear all expenses.

SP Singh told TNS that he had also initiated efforts for the freedom of an octogenarian inmate of the jail, Mahabir Prasad, who was undergoing treatment for a heart ailment in the jail hospital.He said there were eight other prisoners who were above 80 years of age.