THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Ranchi, January 10: The Jharkhand State Sentence Remission Board today decided to release 56 prisoners serving life imprisonment in various state jails.
Two of them included the convicts in the murder case of trade union leader VG Gopal in Jamshedpur in 1993.
The board had earlier rejected their remission proposal.
Gopal was killed in broad daylight when he was coming out of the union office at Bistupur in Jamshedpur on October 14, 1993.
The four killers, who had been convicted after trial in 2006, were Amrendra Kumar Singh, Lalit Chandra Biswas, Munna Sharma and Raju Sen. The Jharkhand high court had acquitted Munna Sharma in 2015.
This consensus to release 56 prisoners was reached after reviewing a proposal to release 109 prisoners in the 30th meeting of the Board chaired by Chief Minister Hemant Soren. The case of 21 prisoners was reviewed for the first time in the meeting.
During the review, the opinions of the courts, Superintendents of Police of the concerned districts, Jail Superintendents and District Probation Officers were discussed in detail.
Rehabilitation of prisoners
The chief minister told the officials that there should be continuous tracking and monitoring of the prisoners who are released from jail. Apart from this, initiatives should also be taken towards their rehabilitation so that they remain in the mainstream, he added.
Universal Pension Scheme for elderly prisoners
The chief minister said that it has often been seen that the elderly prisoners who are released from jail and their families do not come forward to adopt them. “In such a situation, they should be linked to the Universal Pension Scheme of the government so that they do not have to wander here and there in such situations,” he said.
He also said that the released prisoners should be given the benefits of various government welfare schemes to get facilities to earn a living.
So far, 1831 prisoners have been released
In this meeting, the officials told the chief minister that till the 29th meeting of the Jharkhand State Sentence Remission Board, 1831 prisoners had been released. Officials also said that since 2019 till now, the houses of 457 prisoners have been surveyed by the District Probation Officers. Of these, 378 prisoners have benefited from various government schemes, while connecting other prisoners with government schemes is underway.
Who all were present?
In this meeting, Additional Chief Secretary of Home Jail and Disaster Management Department Avinash Kumar, Director General of Police Ajay Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Vinay Kumar Choubey, Principal Secretary of Law Department-cum-Legal Advisor Nalin Kumar, Inspector General of Police Manoj Kaushik were present. Jail Inspector General Umashankar Singh, Judicial Commissioner Ranchi Arun Kumar Rai, Jail AIG Hamid Akhtar and Probationer Officer Chandramouli Singh were also present.
