Journalist Navalesh Pathak, arrested last month amid controversies and obscure allegations in connection with a ruling MLA’s murder by a lady teacher, on Thursday led an agitation by prisoners in the jail in Purnea where he has been lodged since.
About 700 prisoners sat on an indefinite fast inside the Purnea Central Jail to protest against the supply of bad food to the inmates and the alleged sale of the jail’s wards to some powerful prisoners by the authorities. Pathak, editor of the Purnea-based English magazine Quisling that had first published the lady teacher’s allegations of rape against BJP legislator Raj Kishore Keshri, was reportedly leading this fast and sent out letters to some journalists in Purnea, his home town.
Charged by the Bihar police under Sections 120-B (conspiracy) and 109 (abetment to crime) of the Indian Penal Code following Kesri’s January 4 murder by school principal Rupam Pathak’s daring knife attack, the journalist may be using his time inside the jail to expose the corruption there, said a Purnea journalist familiar with him. “This jail is a place full of corruption and all prisoners, including the many under-trials, here are being treated like dirt here,” his letter said.
“The jail authorities have been routinely selling the wards here to a few powerful prisoners, who, in turn, are fleecing poor, helpless prisoners. The food given to all prisoners except those few is atrocious. Rice always contains 25 per cent stone pebbles,” said Awadhesh Mandal, an undertrial prisoner and member of the Purnea zila parishad.
Mandal, arrested in December last for assaulting his wife and Purnea JD(U) legislator Bima Bharti, was on Thursday acquitted by a local court.