Vishal Sharma walked out of Tihar’s jail number 7 on April 4 — nearly eight months after he was lodged — into lockdown, with no means to return home.
He has found refuge in a government school-cum-shelter home in Tihar Village near Subhash Nagar.
When Sharma, a resident of Jalandhar, Punjab, called his parents to inform them about his release, they were both happy and sad.
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Premature release
“They did not know I was going to be released early on April 4. When I called them in the evening after I was released, they were shocked. Their first reaction was to drive all the way and get me. For that, however, they would require a movement pass and I did not want my aged parents to go through the hassle,” he said.
Sharma was supposed to be released in May but jail authorities decided to let him off early on account of good conduct, he said.
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Sharma, a software engineer, was in the U.S. when he was accused of quarrelling with a man online. “The man lodged a complaint in South Delhi’s Mehrauli police station in 2013 and then an FIR was registered under the IT Act. When I came to India in 2015, I gave my statement to the police and went back. I didn’t want the case to go to trial so I pleaded guilty in 2018 when I came here. I was sentenced to one-year imprisonment,” he said. But his parents bailed him out after three months and he went to Dubai for work. He finally surrendered again in August 2019 to complete the remaining period.
Inside the jail, as everyone knew about the lockdown, Sharma said, “I never imagined I would say this, but I asked the jail authorities if I could stay in the prison till April 14 because I had no means to go home but they denied”.
Shelter facility
After stepping out, he asked one of the officials where could he possibly go and was informed of a shelter facility in SDMC Primary School in Tihar Village. He walked a few metres and then found an e-rickshaw which dropped him.
With the stamp from Tihar jail still on his left arm, he walked into the school and has been staying and helping since then.
At the government school, he has been tasked with maintaining a record of people who are taking food for the school authorities and to inform the District Magistrate office for further requirement. “It is probably because I am educated and most importantly, I am healthy,” he said.
Talking about his time in the facility, he said that he spends all day surfing the Internet, watching videos and movies. A friend from Tilak Nagar met him on April 4 and handed him a mobile phone among other things.
Jail hygiene
As far as his time in prison is concerned, he said that officials seemed to be only concerned with their own hygiene and most prisoners are living like they used to. “If one person contracts the virus, they won’t be able to control the spread, such is the condition,” he said.
Standing next to him was the school’s security guard Jasveer Singh Meharolia who has been managing the food and shelter along with school principal Anita Rani.
A retired Indo-Tibetan Border Police Havaldar Dharamvir (59), hailing from Haryana’s Jhajjar, who is also stuck here praised the duo for maintaining hygiene at the school. He too shared his story of reaching the school. Before the lockdown, he had gone to Kanpur to collect rent for his property and got stuck.
On April 6, he reached Delhi in a fruit vendor’s truck till Azadpur Mandi where he managed to get a newspaper. “I read about this school turning into a shelter for people. I took lift from a constable till Punjabi Bagh and then another lift from a person till Raja Garden and then walked about 5 km to reach here,” said Mr. Dharamvir. His two sons are serving the nation in the Army posted in Sikkim and Jammu.
Sharma listened to him intently. “I just can’t wait to go home,” he sighed.