A 52-year-old Chennai resident, who was lodged in the Puzhal jail for theft in March this year and was released on bail in June, missed his prison friends and food so much that he stole a bike, petrol from parked vehicles and intentionally flashed his face in front of CCTV cameras just so that he could be arrested by the police and sent back to the jail, reports Times of India.

According to the report, Gnanaprakasam, a resident of Chennai’s Perungalathur, was arrested for theft in March. After spending three months in Puzhal prison, he was released on bail on 29 June.

However, he was not very happy to be at home as his family members did not take care of him, Tambaram assistant commissioner of police P Asokan was quoted in the report as saying. He told police that unlike at home, there was nobody in the jail who called him lazy. He said that apart from food, he was also missing his friends in jail.

“My wife and children were always abusing me,” a police officer quoted him as saying after his second arrest on Tuesday (9 July), as reported by ToI.

Unhappy with behaviour meted out to him by family members, Gnanaprakasam decided to left home and started thinking of a way to return to jail. As per his statement to the police, he stole a bike from Kailasapuram First Street in West Tambaram.

He made sure that a CCTV camera caught him in the act and started roaming the city. Whenever the bike ran out of fuel, he stole petrol from vehicles parked on the road, said the statement.

As per the report, the local residents caught him stealing petrol from a bike near Tambaram following which they handed him over to the police.

In what seemed like a happy ending for both police and the accused, he has been sent back to the Puzhal jail.