At the stroke of midnight...

NEW DELHI: At least 1,600 convicts in Andhra Pradesh will smell freedom on August 15, as the Supreme Court(SC) declined on Tuesday to stay the state’s notification ordering release of the convicts.

The convicts, sentenced for committing heinous crimes, will be released from jails as part of the Congress government’s programme to celebrate “150 years of the First War of Independence”.

The Independence Day bonanza to the criminals had hit a roadblock when advocate R Chandrashekar Reddy filed a petition challenging the state’s release order issued on August 7. Reddy said the order had been passed “ignoring the sentiments of the victims and their family members”.

Reddy said such a premature release would send a wrong signal to new criminals. The apex court has listed his petition for hearing on August 16.

The list of convicts includes Guru Venkat Reddy, husband of Congress MLA Gouru Charita Reddy. Venkat, sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment in a murder case, had been set free by former Governor of AP Sushil Kumar Shinde. But the SC had quashed Shinde’s order and directed the state to rearrest him.

As per a report, nearly 70 per cent of 3,22,000 inmates in India’s 1,135 prisons are awaiting trial.

This figure is higher than other South Asian countries such as Bangladesh (67 pc), Pakistan (66 pc) and Sri Lanka (49.3 pc).
The actual capacity of the 1,135 prisons is 2,23,000 prisoners.