Jailor gets memo for lapses in furlough rejection information

MUMBAI: The

prison authorities

have issued a

memo

to a Nashik jailor asking him why he did not brief the public prosecutor about Jitendra Rana alias Chaina’s

furlough

plea being rejected twice—in 2017 and 2018.

Rana, who was convicted in 2016 for the murder of Keenan Santosh and Ruben Fernandez outside a restaurant in Andheri in 2011, had approached the Bombay high court for getting furlough. The court has recently granted him furlough leave for 14 days and he will soon be out of prison.

Yogesh Desai, deputy inspector general of prisons issued the memo. The jailor is expected to file his say soon.

“This jailor had been following up the case and would attend the court hearings in Mumbai in connection with Rana’s application,” said a source from the jail department. “The prison department had rejected Rana’s furlough plea in 2018 and he then approached Mantralaya. His application was rejected there too. Later, he approached the HC. It was the duty of the jailor to brief all the people concerned about the rejection of Rana’s furlough pleas in 2017 and 2018,” the source added.

The high court recently allowed Rana’s furlough application and asked the police authorities to obtain necessary bonds from him and his guarantor, besides placing conditions to facilitate his release.

Rana, 30, was the prime accused in the 2011 murder of Keenan and Reuben. In 2016, the sessions court had convicted Rana and three others Satish Dulgaj, Sunil Both and Deepak Piwal for attacking and murdering Keenan and Reuben outside a restaurant in Andheri in 2011. The duo had objected to the accused sexually harassing their women friends. The court has sentenced the four accused to life imprisonment.

Generally, the officers following any case in court are liable to keep all people concerned in the loop, even about the small developments. Senior jail authorities feel that the jailor had not properly briefed the public prosecutor in this case about Rana’s furlough pleas being rejected by the prison department in the past as well.