Having surprised many by being casual even after the pronouncement of the death sentence on Monday, the five convicts in the Dilsukhnagar blasts case embarrassed Cherlapalli prison authorities on Tuesday by ‘demanding white shoes’.
The five convicts were ‘under-trial prisoners’ since they were brought to Cherlapalli Central Prison here nearly two years ago and had the freedom to wear civil clothes. After the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court awarded death sentence to them on Monday, they became ‘convict prisoners’.
As per prison rules, all convict prisoners must wear white dress given to them by officials. In compliance with the rules, the prison officials asked them on Tuesday morning to wear white dress but the five convicts reacted with a strange demand.
“Give us white shoes also if white dress is to be worn compulsorily,” the convicts were quoted as saying by a top prison official. But there is no practice in prison to supply shoes let alone white ones to convicts and naturally the officials had no stocks of shoes.
When the officials explained to them that there was no system to supply shoes, the convicts didn’t budge and stuck to their demand. Till afternoon, the impasse continued with the officials citing the rules and the convicts sticking to their guns. Unable to decide on how to proceed on the matter, the jail authorities kept the matter in abeyance temporarily. Interestingly, this is not the first time ‘shoes’ have become a bone of contention between prison officials and convicts.
Earlier during the trial of the case, one of the accused said refused to attend the court claiming he had leg pain. When the authorities told him to walk slowly up to the court hall located on the prison premises, the accused refused to do so but finally obliged, a prison officer recalled.
There was no change in the barrack of the convicts. They were kept in the same high-security barrack. Each convict had a separate single room. They were supplied with the same food given to under-trial prisoners.
