By IANS
Patna : Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Anand Mohan Singh, sentenced to death for murder, has been moved to hospital after his condition deteriorated following a 15-day hunger strike in Bhagalpur jail.
Singh, sentenced to death last month for the murder of Gopalganj District Magistrate G. Krishnaiah in 1994, was shifted to the ICU of Bhagalpur’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital late Sunday.
The former MP had been on a hunger strike since Nov 4, demanding better facilities meant for special class prisoners in jail after the state government refused to give him the status.
“We cannot go against jail manuals to provide him special treatment. He was given everything as a prisoner awarded death sentence,” a senior official in the state prison department said.
Jail officials said as per the jail manuals, a prisoner on death row has to sleep on the ground with only two blankets and has to be provided simple food.
Last week, Singh’s wife Lovely Anand, a former MP who was also jailed for life for the same crime and later granted bail by the Patna High Court, said her husband was humiliated and mistreated in jail despite being on hunger strike.
After meeting Singh in jail, Lovely Anand alleged that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and state Home Secretary Afzal Amanullah were trying to settle personal scores with her husband.
Jail officials in Bhagalpur said Singh went on hunger strike soon after he was shifted from Patna’s Beur jail to high-security Bhagalpur jail.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Akhlaq Ahmad and former legislator Arun Kumar, both sentenced to death in the same case, were also shifted from Beur to Bhagalpur under heavy security.
Singh’s mother Geeta Devi said she would undertake a fast-unto-death to protest the ‘inhuman treatment’ meted out to her son in jail.