'Guruji' finally becomes 'Qaidi No 1726'

New Delhi, Dec 7: Time spares no one and is considered a big leveller.

Yesterday's Union Coal Minister is today's 'Qaidi No 1726' serving a life term in the Tihar Central Jail here for murdering his personal assistant some 12 years ago.

Till a few days ago, Shibu Soren may have been wielding power as a Cabinet Minister, but today he is not anything more than 'Qaidi No 1726' for the Jail officials.

The Jail authorities yesterday allotted Qaidi Ticket (convict number) to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief, a highly placed jail official told UNI here today.

Soren was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court in the Shashinath Jha murder case on Tuesday and after that he was kept in Barrack No 4 of Jail No 2 in the central prison.

The JMM chief was also slapped with a Rs five lakh fine in the case.

Shashinath Jha was murdered in 1994.

The court had also handed down life imprisonment to four other convicts in the case.

The doctors attending on Soren yesterday found him to be unfit and therefore refused to allot him work a convict has to do while serving a sentence.

But the other four, who were sentenced along with him, have been allotted the task of gardening on the jail premises.

According to the doctors, Soren ate properly and also did some meditation. He had tea and bread for breakfast and 'Daal' and 'Chapati' for dinner.

''But he has weakened a lot and, therefore, has been advised to rest,'' they said.

Meanwhile, Soren's conviction and Santosh Singh's hanging order in the Priyadarshini Mattoo murder case has thrown the entire lot of VIPs inmates in the Tihar jail in a frenzy and they have started contacting their lawyers.

Among the VIP inmates are -- Prime accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar case IPS officer R K Sharma, Naina Sahani's murder case convict Romesh Sharma, CPI(M) leader Ajit Sarkar's murder case accused Pappu Yadav, Councillor Atmaram Gupta's murder case accused Sharda Jain, Jessica Lal's murder case accused Manu Sharma and Nitish Katara's murder case accused Vikas and Vishal Yadav.

The official said all these VIP inmates had started contacting their lawyers and even asked them to strengthen their defence because there was a fear among them that if a three-time Minister could be thrown behind bars for the crime he had committed some 12 years ago then they were not more than a lot of ''lesser mortals''.

UNI