Salman shocked on most horrible condition in Jodhpur jail
MIL/Agencies/dnaindia, Apr 16, 2006.
Mumbai - While the battles challenging his five-year sentence may go on in the courts, Bollywood actor Salman Khan has set his sights on something noble.
Salman now wants to do something to improve the living conditions for the inmates at the Jodhpur Jail where he spent just three days last week before he was granted bail. He is quite used to brief spells in jail in Mumbai after the infamous accident a few years ago, followed by the Jodhpur incident, as per revelation by dnaindia.
Speaking to DNA, Salman's father Salim Khan said his son was appalled by the sub-human conditions prevalent in Jodhpur Jail. "The toilet was so horrible that a human being could not step inside," Khan said.
Salman was also shocked by the living conditions of some of the prisoners who have been incarcerated there for years, and some even decades. The kitchen is in a pitiable state; there are no TVs.
But it was the plight of the aged prisoners, which moved him to tears. "Salman recounted to us (the family) that most of the prisoners have lost even the desire to live - they just exist behind bars - they have lost all sense of time, and do not care when their sentence will end," Salim Khan said. Most prisoners did not appear to be hardened criminals but had committed a crime in a fit of emotional rage. For that mistake, they are still paying with precious years of their lives.
However, Khan said it was not possible to ascertain whether the jail was starved of funds or lacked the will to improve its pitiable infrastructure. "Salman is prepared to help raise funds if the authorities cooperate," he said. "Salman now feels that compared to the sad plight of the other prisoners in that jail, his sentence was nothing."
|