Bihar: Anand Mohan walks out of prison

Bihar politician Anand Mohan, convicted and sentenced to life in a murder case, on Thursday walked out of the Saharsa jail before the break of dawn after the Bihar government amended prison rules according to which convicts who have served 14 or 20 years in jail could be released.

The gangster-turned-politician was on a 15-day parole to attend the engagement ceremony of his son Chetan Anand, and returned to the prison on April 26.

“He moved out around 4 am,” a Saharsa jail official told media persons who had gathered outside the prison. Mohan was serving a life sentence for the murder of Gopalganj District Magistrate G Krishnaiah in 1994.

On Wednesday, the Bihar prisons department released around 14 convicts from various jails. But it is Mohan’s release that has triggered political heat in the state.

A close aide of Mohan said he did not want to stir further controversy by speaking to the media at this stage. “He will speak to the media when he is free from his son’s wedding and other engagements,” he added.

Along with Anand Mohan, a total of 26 other prisoners got relief from the prison manual amendment. The politician has already made it clear that he wishes to be politically active, but contesting elections may not be immediately possible after being convicted in a murder case.

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However, his wife and former MP Lovely Anand will contest, while his son is already a legislator from Sheohar. Mohan is considered an influential leader among Rajput voters.

Earlier, the home department had notified the change in the rule 481 (1-a) of the Bihar Prison Manuel, 2012. The notification made a significant change in the rules for the release from jail by deleting the the phrase “or murder of a Government servant on duty”, which benefited Anand Mohan Singh.

The case

Mohan was convicted in the murder case of the then Gopalganj District Magistrate on 5 December 1994 in Muzaffarpur. According to the probe, Mohan instigated a mob that dragged Krishnaiah out of his official car and lynched him to death.

Krishnaiah, a 1985-batch IAS officer, hailed from Mahbubnagar in present-day Telangana.

Following investigation, Mohan was sentenced to death by a trial court in 2007. However, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the Patna high court a year later. Though he challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court, he stayed in Saharsa jail since 2007 after the top court turned down his plea.