About 6,000 convicts in Central prison are serving sentences over 10 yrs
Naam Thamizhar Katchi, Seeman demands the release of convicts who have undergone a sentence of more than 10 years in jail. (Photo: DC)
Coimbatore: The leader of Naam Thamizhar Party Seeman has demanded that those who have been spending over ten years in jail have to be released on humanitarian grounds.
During a protest along with about 100 party members including advocate Bhavani Mohan, who was the defence counsel for the banned Al Umma members who were involved in the serial bomb blasts that rocked the city in 1998, Seeman said those languishing in jail for over ten years need to be released.
There are about 6,000 convicts in the Central Prison who are serving sentence over 10 years and of these about 3,000 have been serving life sentence. Several are more than 80 years old and they have been suffering inside due to various health ailments and hence they should be released on humanitarian grounds.
Abu Thahir, a convict in the serial bomb blast, has also been suffering from kidney problems and hence he too should be released, Seeman said. The central government should grant powers to the state governments to release convicts from the jail just as it is the responsibility of the state government to maintain the jail and the inmates.
Even as the apex court had put the onus on the state government to release Murugan, Santhan and Pearivalan, undergoing sentence in the murder of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, both the Congress and the BJP seem to be taking the same stance and are not releasing them. “The central government is acting against the interest of TN and the Tamils,” he said.
Further on the 2016 assembly elections he said that the party will contest in 234 constituencies and has already announced the candidates for eleven. On July 18, ten more candidates would be announced, he added.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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