Proxies serve Sentences in jail

Dummies languish in jail
Statesman News Service

PATNA, 1 DEC: When it comes to serving a jail sentence, criminals in Bihar know how best to avoid it. According to reports, they are sending their “dummies” to jails to serve sentences after being convicted by a court or after just being named in criminal cases, exposing the criminal-police nexus.
In a latest case, a youth in Nawada district had to spend 20 months in jail for the massacre of 11 villagers in his district in June 2000 although he was not even remotely connected with the crime. What proved unlucky for him was that he shared the name of dreaded gangster Ashok Mahato who was the real perpetrator of the crime. The court issued a warrant of arrest against the accused but while his “dummy” served a jail sentence for no fault of his, the real accused Ashok Mahato roamed freely in the area for about two years. Although the local police term it a case of “mistaken identity”, human rights activists allege the victim was forcibly arrested by police to allow the real culprits to walk free.
Taking the matter seriously, the National Human Rights Commission has ordered the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for his wrongful imprisonment. The directive follows a petition by Human Rights Watch, an NGO working for human rights, who brought the entire matter to the notice of the commission and exposed the injustice done to the innocent. Ironically, the “real” criminal, accused in many cases of murder, kidnapping, extortion and rape, was arrested by the police later and is currently in the jail.
Earlier, a notorious gangster from Saharsa district Bhushan Singh had sent his nephew to jail to serve a life sentence on his behalf while he himself cheated banks all these years until police cracked the mystery and arrested the real culprit last month. The youth remained in jail for over five years serving rigorous jail imprisonment but he never complained. The reason behind it, police said, was that the real culprit had been paying his family a monthly allowance of Rs 10,000 .
The gangster had been awarded life imprisonment by a local court in 1995 in connection with the murder of a villager Gopal Gupta in 1982. Subsequently, he moved the upper court but it rejected his appeal and asked him to surrender immediately. Later, the criminal lured his sister’s son to go to jail in his place while promising to pay his family a monthly allowance of Rs 10,000 and the latter being an unemployed youth agreed to do that until the police freed him from jail.

What we are reading above is not anything new for Bihar.
This has been going on for the last 40 to 50 years.
Around 1975, I was working in a firm in Patna.
One of the owners had been charged with a certain crime and had to spend some time in prison.
One of our employees went to prison on behalf of the owner to serve the sentence, of course, some money must have been given but I don't know how much.
It isn't for nothing that Bihar has got the title of the most criminalised state. It is just because the criminals, although convicted, manage to roam about freely while a proxy serves the sentence. In this, the police, the jail authorities and politicians connive.
I hear Nitish Kumar is trying to change things but then I don't know how he will do it when he himself is embracing criminals and welcoming them into his party.