Arrested AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala Natarajan has been accused of paying Rs.2 crore bribe to Karnataka Director General of Prisons and Bengaluru’s Central Jail officials for “special privileges.” This reminds me of the book I read recently. A good book, a scary book and a heart-breaking book of prison tales. The book titled “Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous” written by NDTV journalist Sunetra Choudhury is worth a read. Interestingly, what prompted her to write this book was when she saw a photograph of Anca Neacsu Verma, wife of arms dealer Abhishek Verma, wearing Louis Vuitton, the expensive designer fashion line, in Tihar Jail! The book gives us a glimpse into the lives of high profile Tihar inmates such as Peter Mukerjea, Amar Singh and A. Raja among others. The very first subject is Amar Singh, who was accused of paying off BJP MPs during Indo-US nuclear deal. Amar Singh was in jail for just four days and of his arrest he says, “I went to jail and all the sentries started saluting me not realising that I was a prisoner!” But he says he was not treated special pointing out, “I was given a small chatai with no pillow. I was given a bucket of water with a mug. So if I had to drink water, I had to drink from that and if I had to shit, I would have to wash my vitals parts using that mug.” Four days later Amar Singh was moved to AIIMS where he stayed till he got bail. Then there is Anca, who along with her husband, was booked for bribery and money laundering in an arms deal case. It seems, she was asked to strip naked before she was checked into Tihar and when they tried to do the same to her husband he refused stating, “The rule book makes it clear that one should only be stripped if the security buzzer goes off” — they didn’t strip him.
