Kolkata: The first time I met Ishaq Ahmed, a Pakistani convict jailed for 23 years in the Presidency Central Correctional Home (“Presidency”) in Kolkata, I remember how he greeted me with an ‘Adab!’ and entered the legal aid clinic with a warm smile on his face. 

Ahmed took a chair and sat across the table, eager to talk. The welfare officer had summoned him, saying that a lawyer had come to interview convicts. So, he had come prepared with his files, with his case documents chronologically arranged. Those files were what he called his only possession during incarceration. 

Ahmed started taking out paper after paper and said, “Madame, ye dekhiye mere saare kaagaz. Ab main aapko puri kahaani batata hu…”. (Madame, here are all my papers. Now, I will tell you my whole story.)

We spoke for two hours that day. 

Presidency, commonly known as the Old Alipore Jail, was designated the first central prison in Bengal in 1864. It housed several political prisoners during the independence struggle, two former chief ministers, and was a place where Indian freedom fighters were executed. 

The second time I spoke to Ahmed, he told me that in 23 years, no other lawyer had spoken to him with such patience. He said he remembered me in his prayers that day after I had left. 

Ishaq, along with Arshad Khan and Tarique Mehmood, had been first arrested in a case under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002, in Delhi along with other Pakistanis and Indians accused of committing various subversive and terrorist acts in India, a few of whom had pleaded guilty immediately. 

The prosecution case included the possibility of the principal accused kidnapping several highly-placed individuals and also getting a few terrorists, who were lodged in Indian jails, released in the bargain. 

Ahmed, Khan and Mehmood faced trial and were convicted in 2010 for ten years. Later, in 2012, in an appeal, the Delhi High Court, while reducing the sentence to eight years, said the evidence did not support the nature of the allegations. 

However, meanwhile, these three Pakistani persons were also arraigned in another incident in Kolkata that took place in 2001, involving the kidnapping of a famous Kolkata businessman for an alleged ransom amounting to crores by way of shooting and pushing him inside a Maruti car. 

The trial unfolded in two phases. The second phase began in 2012 after the Pakistani nationals had completed their sentence in Delhi. They were eventually convicted for life in the same, along with other Indians, for kidnapping for ransom in 2017. 

Even though the State argued that the money extorted by these persons from several businessmen was used to advance the cause of jihad, the Calcutta High Court, in 2014, while pronouncing its judgement on the appeals arising from the conviction of the first phase trial, held that even though an event of cross-border organised crime was evident, allegations of linking them with jihad were not made out. 

Their appeal, arising from the judgement of the second phase trial in the Kolkata case, is currently pending in the Calcutta High Court, and they have little understanding of its status.

In their late 50s and early 40s, respectively, Ishaq and Arshad have very amicable relationships with their fellow detainees, and officials are very fond of them. 

One of the documents in Ahmed’s file is a certificate of good conduct with an award of Rs 1,000, his prized possession, issued by the additional director general and inspector general, West Bengal Correctional Services in 2018 after he had saved the life of a police official within the Presidency who met with an accident. 

While rummaging through these papers, my eyes caught many handwritten letter petitions and pages of Urdu writings, poems, and stories. At various periods of incarceration, the letter petitions were sent to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court requesting the court to direct their return to Pakistan. The Superintendent of Presidency has duly forwarded them all to the court, but no one could tell where those may be lying now. 

Many of Ishaq’s original poems were recited to me later over the official telephone of the Presidency, with him asking in anticipation each time, “Toh Madame arz kiya hai.” (May I be permitted to present?) He is writing a book, an incomplete draft of which has been shared with me. 

I could not speak to the third member, Tarique. 

Ishaq said he had deteriorated mentally over the years and spoke to himself the whole day in his solitary cell. He recalled how, one day, Tarique informed everyone that Arshad was hanged. He put on his prayer cap and sat to pray for the deceased. 

Ishaq was shocked to his core. 

He found out later that Arshad was going about just fine. I could not interview Tariq because he would refuse, stating that he was waiting to meet ‘Governor Saahab’, dressed perfectly in his Sherwani and topi.

Even though often looked at as a robust community of persons in any jail for having stayed longer inside than, under trials or even officials, convicts are, in reality, more invisibilized due to the very period of detention. 

Their vulnerabilities only increase each year—families abandoning them, news on their appeals seldom reaching them, and lack of information regarding their applications for premature release or access to legal rights upon rejection of remission. 

31 Years On

Ishaq introduced me to Bijoy Mukherjee, another convict, incarcerated for 31 years. 

Bijoy was only 27 during his arrest in 1991, with four others (one released under remission, one dead and two in Baruipur jail in South 24 Parganas district) under charges of murder and convicted for the same in 1993. 

The incident resulted from a scuffle between two political parties in West Bengal. Bijoy said he and his friends were working under the instructions of the then-governing party. 

Amidst shooting from both sides, one person of the opposite party was killed. 

Uncertain of the dates of his appeal,  Bijoy said the High Court and the Supreme Court upheld their convictions.

However, that has not been able to take away Bijoy’s inherent trait of being very cheerful. He enacted in detail the events of the day of the incident—from the scuffle to the police chasing them to fleeing in a taxi and later the driver aiding the police in getting them arrested—as everyone in the clinic listened to him ardently. 

In the end, keeping his smile intact, he said, “No matter how long one is inside, you can never adjust to a jail life. I want to go out and start my own business, but when?”

Like Bijoy, Sibu Mondol was incarcerated for 31 years. However, unlike Bijoy or Ishaq, he was a quiet, shy man in his 50s from Madhuban, Bihar. He migrated to Bengal in his teens and did various odd jobs here and there. 

When arrested, he worked as a cook and cleaner for four years in a house in Chitpur. One day, while cleaning around, an almirah accidentally fell over the son of the owner, and he died. Two other people in the room saw. 

Sibu panicked and ran away out of fear.  He was later arrested.

During the trial (1993-1996), Sibu was given a legal aid lawyer from the court whom Sibu had never met and could never share precisely what happened. However, he remembers telling the trial judge the whole truth at the 313 stage, but in 1996, he was convicted for life. He does not know when an appeal was filed. 

Sibu neither knew the lawyer's name nor met them. He knew it may have been filed at some point because, in 2000, the then-jailor informed him that the High Court upheld his conviction. 

Later, he could not file his appeal in the Supreme Court because in 2001, during a ‘jail pagli’ (in common jail parlance, it is an event of complete chaos within jail premises caused by detainees—sometimes with the aid of outsiders—to flee), the High Court’s judgement copy got ruined due to flooding inside the wards.

Never Met Their Lawyer

Tapas Halder and Jaydeb Bhogi had neither spoken to their trial court lawyer during the trial nor met their High Court appeal lawyer later after their life conviction. 

Both were arraigned under murder charges in 1993 along with two other friends (presently in Baruipur Jail) after a young boy was found dead in the neighbourhood. 

Everyone in the mohalla knew them as four friends who drank and smoked together. Therefore, it was easier for the police to pick them up as easy targets. 

Tapas remembered the public prosecutor and the investigating officer providing them with a legal aid lawyer in Sealdah Court during the trial. 

After the 1995 judgement, Tapas and Jaydeb placed their thumb impressions on a paper. They were told it was a vakalatnama (a legal document authorising a lawyer to appear) for the High Court. However, they received no information thereafter. 

It was only when someone in the Presidency informed them that their conviction had been upheld by the High Court, around the late 1990s, that they knew their conviction had been upheld. 

Afterwards, an application for legal aid was sent to the Supreme Court, but this year, as they completed 28 years of detention, they still do not know the fate of that appeal.               

Family & Friendships 

Tapas and Joydeb used to have mulaqats with one niece and mother, respectively. However, the niece stopped coming ten years ago, and Joydeb’s mother, although she had come a few times earlier to meet her son, could not travel alone at 80 years old. 

Jaydeb passed his days working as a sweeper while Tapas was given security work in the wards. 

Joydeb's lengthy incarceration had made him angry and irritable. The officials told me he was well-behaved with me; otherwise, he was a ‘menace’ to everyone. Scared of his behaviour, Tapas usually kept quiet around him. 

Lengthy incarceration had also affected Sibu Mondol psychologically. Sibu still has vivid memories of the day of the accident, which has had a severe impact on him. He was often reminded of it and did not know what to do with his thoughts.

I asked if he had been to therapy, and he said that one must be ‘paagol’ (mad) to go to the medical section on days the psychiatrist comes to the Presidency. 

In jail, he worked in the bag-making section for a few hours and later as a security person within wards as his assigned labour. He had stayed on his own all these years, diligently doing his chores, rarely speaking to anyone, and making no friends. He said friendships in jails are impossible. 

Bijoy, who, too, chooses to stay alone, shared this same thought about friendships in jail. 

He laughed and said,“…bondhuder pallay pore politics e joriye biye taao holona, nijer poribar thaakto...” (Because of peers, got involved in politics, could not even get married, would have had my own family now).

However, getting married does not ensure a family for these convicts. 

For instance, Sibu was married for many years before his arrest. His wife, finding no future with him, broke the marriage right after the court’s verdict. Thereafter, one of Sibu’s uncles used to come for mulaqat, but that too stopped eventually. He received no news of him since Sibu had never gone out on parole, unlike Bijoy, Tapas, and Joydeb, who are residents of West Bengal. 

Being from another state, Sibu needed police escorts from his local police station to receive him from the Presidency and return him. But they did not cooperate and gave him unfavourable reports, rejecting the jail application for parole.

Even during the lockdown, when, as per the Supreme Court’s directions, many convicts were released on parole for 14 long months, Sibu was in jail. 

Thirty-one years, with not even a day of release, has made him lonelier and perhaps even depressed.  

Bijoy, however, had returned from his 20-day parole for this year a few days before the interview.

Once a year was the usual time, although Bijoy has seen a time, decades ago, when convicts went out on parole at least twice a year. 

Bijoy had witnessed shifts in prison culture for three decades (when wages for labour in West Bengal jails were two paise per day). It has now increased to 120 rupees per day. He took the wages for his expenses outside.

Bijoy had a decent relationship with his brothers, so he usually stayed at their place. In the Presidency, he worked extensively as ward-in-charge in several barracks. 

When I asked whether he had received any training from officials or others for the same, he smiled, saying, “Jail khaana e shob shikhiye dey aste aste.” (the jail is such a place that it teaches you everything slowly). 

A Decades-Long Wait

However, jail may not teach everyone the same way. 

After the interview with Joydeb and Tapas, I remember that Tapas came back alone to meet me in the clinic. He sobbed for long, recalling his mother, who was old and severely ill now. He shared how he could not learn to cope with his guilt of not doing anything for his family owing to his “never-ending detention”. 

Each passing year made him even more desperate to be able to care for his ailing mother finally.

After some time, Tapas wiped his tears and tried to recount the days he had been out from the Presidency on parole and had met her. 

By this time, Jaydeb had come back looking for Tapas. 

Later, officials told me Jaydeb returned because he loved talking but usually ended up fighting with people around, so most people were scared to engage. 

Jaydeb finished Tapas’s calculation and answered that they had received parole for 500 days in the last 28 years. 

Many times, during such parole, they said they had been informed by the neighbours that a probation officer had come to enquire about the four of them in the neighbourhood, Jaydeb, Tapas, Jawahar  Lal and Haru Patra, to submit the report on premature release before the State Sentencing Review Board (SSRB) and how no one in the locality has any problem with their release. 

However, they had not received any news of the status of their remission application, and there was a long silence after this. 

An official filled the silence, assuring them that they would be released this time. 

Jaydeb, instantly annoyed at the assurance, looked at me and said, “khaali shunei jaachhi 20 bochhor dhore je ei berobe, ei berobe, ekhon mone hoy ekebaare amaar konkaal berobe ei jail ta theke.” (Just been hearing that we will be released for 20 years. Now I think only my skeleton will get released from jail).

However, no official in the Presidency can indeed predict an SSRB decision in any case. 

For instance, in Bijoy’s application for remission, SSRB rejected his release based on an adverse police report, even after receiving favourable reports from the Superintendent of the Presidency and the Probation Officer. 

The police report, which stated the apprehension that, if released, Bijoy could commit bigger crimes and be dangerous to society, was considered in its entirety without any basis. 

Similarly, the SSRB rejected Ishaq and Arshad’s premature release earlier in 2022 by singularly considering reports filed by the Lalbazar police department and the CID, who stated apprehensions that if released, they would tamper with evidence and influence witnesses, given that their appeal is still pending in the High Court. 

Though Ahmed and Khan were not handed a copy of such a rejection order, the officials told them about it.

Bijoy moved the Calcutta High Court in 2024, challenging the SSRB’s rejection of his application.

The court heavily criticised the SSRB, asking it to reconsider the application within six months. It held that the order of rejection was against the National Human Rights Commission's existing guidelines, and the police report, as relied upon by the SSRB, was arbitrary. Upholding the same by disregarding the other reports was incorrect. 

While sharing this, Bijoy told me of more instances of convicts having similar experiences with SSRB’s decisions, many of which were later set aside by the High Court, and they were waiting for their turn to be released.

Sibu was waiting for his turn, too, as he recalled how many years back, he had seen his name in a list of seven convicts in a newspaper that he thought was for release. The officials denied having any such information. 

But Sibu insisted the list contained a probable list of eligible candidates for remission as, over the years, he had seen the same six getting released one after the other but not him. 

The officials were unaware of the status of his remission application.

Bijoy, Ishaq, and Arshad, even though, had come to the edge of the possibility of a second chance in life, missed it this time. Bijoy will again wait for the State to consider his application afresh while the two Pakistanis write another letter to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court.

The names of all the convicts are used with their consent.

(Senjuti Chakrabarti is a legal aid lawyer working in the trial courts in West Bengal)

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