INDIA: Old and infirm, jailed Phool Devi spends more time in UP hospitals

. LUCKNOW, Uttar Pradesh (ExpressIndia), September 12, 2008: By Manish Sahu Jail record says Phool Devi is 82 years old. Her lawyer puts her age at 94. According to her grandson, she is actually 108. Whatever her age is, Phool Devi can’t walk or even sit, her eyesight is poor and she is hard of hearing, and she has cancer of the gall bladder. Phool Devi was sent to jail in 2003 for a murder she and her son committed in 1976. When she is not in the Nari Bandi Niketan of the Lucknow Model Jail, the old woman is found in hospitals. If not cancer, it is for her breathing problem, or some other illness that she has to be taken to one hospital or the other almost every alternate day. Last week, she was first taken to the Balrampur Hospital and later to the Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University (CSMMU). On Thursday, Phool Devi was discharged and sent to jail again. “She needs a surgery for her stomach ailment. But her age doesn’t allow it. Doctors keep her under observation when her condition deteriorates and discharge her when she is a little better,” said a jail employee. What the jail authorities call “stomach ailment” is cancer of the gall bladder, according to Dr Rama Kant, head of the surgical department at the CSMMU. Given her condition, the jail staff is always on tenterhooks. And for her grandson Bhola Nath Pandey, it means making frequent trips to Lucknow. “Four days ago, I got information that my grandmother had been hospitalised. We rushed to Lucknow from Mirzapur. It has become routine for us to rush to Lucknow to be with her. We requested the jail administration to release her on parole so that we could take care of her at home, but they did not agree,” said Bhola Nath. Phool Devi’s relatives are preparing to file another petition. The process involves taking opinion of the police and the district administration and tabling a report before the Jail Committee. The committee’s report is forwarded to the state government for a final decision. Prisoners are released from jail on four grounds — mercy petition, premature release, by nomination, or in case of infirmity. Bhola Nath, a farmer, doesn’t even know they can apply for her release on the ground of infirmity. In fact, a petition for release on this ground has a better chance because, as Senior Superintendent (Jail) VK Jain said, the other grounds for release from jail require a prisoner to have spent over 14 years behind the bars. “When an inmate of such ripe age is admitted in the hospital, we inform their family members,” said Jain. Though they had the facility of in-house doctors, patients are referred to hospitals when they show no sign of recovery, he said. The last inmate to be released on grounds of infirmity was Prabhu Baga, a murder convict. He was released from the Varanasi Central Jail on May 14, 2008. Inspector General (Prison) Sulkhan Singh said: “We have prepared a list of elderly inmates and will try to take up their case on priority basis.” Phool Devi’s crime The Mirzapur police had registered a case against Phool Devi and her son Kashi Nath Pandey, who is now serving term in the Varanasi Central Jail, on November 20, 1976, on the complaint of their neighbour, Santram Pandey. The two had been accused of killing Pandey’s two minor sons owing to enmity. The sessions court awarded life imprisonment to Phool Devi and her son on March 31, 1979. The duo challenged the conviction in the Allahabad High Court, but it upheld the conviction on April 13, 2003. Since then, the mother and son have been in jail. The family says their appeal in the Supreme Court is pending. © 2008 Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd.