Fifty two-year-old Ravi, a taxi driver who drove around tourists in Navi Mumbai, landed in Taloja Central Jail in November after he was arr...
Fifty two-year-old Ravi, a taxi driver who drove around tourists in Navi Mumbai, landed in Taloja Central Jail in November after he was arrested by Maharashtra police on charges of stealing a car battery.
When the coronavirus pandemic began to spread in the state in March, Ravi shared a prison cell with 55 other inmates. Between them, there were only four toilets and one drinking water tap. Maintaining physical distance was nearly impossible, he said.
“There was no space to sleep,” he said. “There was just a distance of one foot between us.”
While the prison authorities distributed masks to the inmates, they did not give them bathing soap or detergent, Ravi said. “My wife would get it [soap and detergent] for me,” he said. “Others had to buy it from the canteen.”
Moreover, he claimed that at least 50 new inmates were pouring into the jail daily. “There was no space to keep them separately,” he said.
Concerned about getting infected with Covid-19, Ravi confessed to the crime he was accused of during a court hearing. The district judge granted him a release since he was nearing the end of his six-month prison sentence, he said. He walked of prison on April 29.
His release comes at a time...
