Sunetra Choudhury - Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous

BEHIND

BARS

OTHER LOTUS TITLES

BEHIND

BARS

PRISON TALES OF

INDIAS MOST FAMOUS

SUNETRA CHOUDHURY

ROLI BOOKS

This digital edition published in 2017

First published in 2017 by
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for

Neel & Sudeep

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

It was sometime in early 2016 that I got a call from an undisclosed number. The woman on the other end of the line had a foreign accent and when she told me her name was Anca, it took me only a couple of seconds to figure out who she was. I was a little confused because the last I heard about Anca Neascu Verma was that she was in jail for various CBI cases along with her husband, Abhishek. Oh, you are now..., I asked. Yes, I am now outside, she finished what I was trying to say, and I could sense her smiling. This sense of humour warmed me a bit, though I was intrigued because while I had reported on CBI and a few of cases that involved her and her husband, I had not shown any particular interest in cases which were more obsessively followed by defence beat reporters. I had never spoken to either of them but I was in touch with their lawyers for legal developments. So when she suggested we meet at Hyatt one afternoon, I thought it was perhaps some lead to a story, so I agreed. I wasnt really sure what I was going to gain from it but the fact that she sought me out soon after coming out of prison, had me curious.

Im feeling so good because I just went to the spa after so long, she declared when she saw me. She looked almost six feet tall and was striking with her blonde hair and a fitted designer dress. I tell people that I was away to the ashram. Thats what I call my four years in jail ashram. I was fascinated to say the least. I guessed she had called me to make a case for her husband who was still in jail at the time. I knew she wanted me to perhaps do stories on what had happened to CBIs investigation after so many years, but what we ended up talking about was her time in jail. I have done stories on jail experiences throughout my career, but never before had I got this kind of insight into prison life.

Anca was rich, beautiful, a Romanian married to an influential Indian businessman who was forever being chased by law authorities, and she was now sitting outside jail, literally cooling her pedicured heels and willing to dish the dirt on what goes on inside. Till now we only had an inkling of what may be happening inside through sporadic news headlines Mohammad Shahabuddin being caught taking selfies with his phone inside prison, the Punjab jailbreaks revealing that they had been updating their Facebook status from inside the jail till the time they ran away, the Nirbhaya rapist committing suicide in jail. Each of these news breaks would quickly be hushed away by a spokesperson, like statement ordering an inquiry, and then everything would get brushed under the carpet again. For the first time, I was meeting a woman who had been in the slammer and was willing to talk about how she figured out the system to her advantage.

So I fixed a TV interview with Anca where she shocked audiences by revealing that well-off women inside jail, like her, hired servants for a fee. The servants, also inmates, would do all their menial tasks for meagre amounts of money, which meant that you could spend your jail term at least not worrying about cleaning the toilet and doing any other task assigned to you.

It would have ended with that a good interview and a good TV show but when she sent me a picture of herself wearing Louis Vuitton inside jail, it was beyond my imagination. She said that it wasnt for publication but there were a whole series of pictures taken like that which I couldnt get off my mind. The CBI may be calling her a con woman but Anca told me something which I found very honest: If you steal 1,000 rupees, the hawaldar will beat the shit out of you and lock you up in a dungeon with no bulb or ventilation. If you steal 55,000 crore then you get to stay in a 40-foot cell which has four split units, internet, fax, mobile phones and a staff of ten to clean your shoes and cook your food (in case it is not being delivered from Hyatt that particular day) Incredible India!