Women inmates of Bhagalpur jail forlorn lot

BHAGALPUR: The Bhagalpur Shaheed Jubba Sahni Central Jail presents the look of a municipality- maintained clean park. The clean roads leading to the male, female and juvenile wards give glimpses of a special world behind the bars. But the women inmates in particular are a forlorn lot, as most of them have been abandoned by their families.
“The condition of the prison has improved a lot in the last few years.But the women prisoners, especially convicts, have been abandoned by their families. Their children do not even come to visit them once a year. Then there are prisoners who face a different degree of stigma and humiliation. This attitude affects them psychologically,” said Rupak Kumar, superintendent of the jail.
They all eat, work, pray and live inside the jail. “Humlog yahan par apni duniya basa liye. Gharwale to kabka sath chor diye, ab yehi hamari duniya hai,” said a woman convict. Despite spending nine years in jail, she believes that killing her husband was the only option left for her as she was tremendously tortured by him. Rupam Pathak, convicted in the murder case of Purnia BJP MLA Raj Kishore Kesri, too has no regret about her past.
When this reporter tried to talk to the women prisoners, one of them, Komal Jha (70), asked, “Kya tum mujhe ghar bhej sakti ho? Agar itna nahin kar sakti to tumse baat karke fayda kya?” She belongs to Saharsa and was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her father-in-law. She is considered the most violent woman prisoner of the jail.
Kumar said the jail wardens can easily control the 1,023 male prisoners, but the female inmates get volatile at times and attack the wardens. “The society’s negative perspective towards inmates has not changed much. Family members of male inmates keep in touch with them, hoping that whenever they are released they would earn for the family. But as there is no such prospect with the female inmates, the family members simply abandon them,” he said.
Incidentally, a prison official said, “as it is the only prison of the state for women, inmates are sent here from different districts. But the distance from their native places sometimes prevents the family members from coming here and meeting the women inmates.” The female ward has a capacity of 83 prisoners and there are 71 inmates, including undertrials and convicts. Eleven children under the age of five years are living with their mothers.
The situation is quite bad in case of female prisoners staying with their children. “Prison authorities cannot keep children above six years. A few days back, we had to pay the grandparents to come from Siwan to Bhagalpur to take away a seven-year-old girl child from her mother,” said the jail superintendent. He said, “The prison authorities always insist on sending the children to their close relatives, but the relatives often don’t want to take the responsibility. So, sometimes, we have to send the children to different children welfare organizations.”
When the inmates were asked about their everyday life in jail, they said, “Yeh log (prison officials) achche hain. Khana bhi achcha milta hai. Humlog roj kaam pe bhi jatein hain. Per madamji, ghar se kyun koi milne nahin ata hai?”
Rupak Kumar said, “We are trying to transfer the female prisoners to their native district jails so that the legal proceedings could be easier for them.”