THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chacko Varkey, 75, has no more desires in life or any strength to commit crimes. He is totally blind and an inmate of the central prison in Poojappura. Varkey, convicted in a murder case, has been undergoing rigorous life imprisonment for the past 12 years. He is among the 11 prisoners in the state who are chronically ill and awaiting death at any moment. And yet the government has not found it fit to release them although it has the discretion to do so on mercy ground. Of the 11, eight are in Poojappura, one in the open prison Nettukaltheri, Thiruvananthapuram, and the rest in central prison, Kannur. One of them is a heart patient, another suffers from cancer, one has chronic skin disease, four are physically disabled and the rest are paralysed. There are nine persons above 75 years of age and some of them have spent 14 to 20 years in prison. Though prison authorities had submitted a proposal to the govt to release the chronic patients and those above 75 years, nothing has happened.“The proposal was first sent in 2010 October when the LDF Government was in power. But when former minister R Balakrishna Pillai was a prisoner in 2011, the media highlighted the proposal as an attempt to facilitate his release ignoring the fact that it had been sent earlier. After his release in November, 2011 the proposal was again sent to the government,” a prison officer told Express. Alexander Jacob, ADGP prisons, declined to comment about the proposal.
Comments
0 comment