ROHTAK: Two years on, Sunaria jail’s prisoner number 8647 aka

Dera chief

has earned Rs 18,000 rupees by growing vegetables on prison premises and dropped 15 kg in weight. Popularly called ‘Baba’ in the jail, Gurmeet was convicted in rape and murder cases in 2017.

Ten days after his 50th birthday grand celebration at dera headquarters, Gurmeet was arrested and put behind bars on August 25, 2017, and was sent to 20 years in jail by a CBI court in

.

Sunaria jail turned into a high security zone with multiple-tier security, including para-military personnel, guarding it round-the-clock and Gurmeet was put in a specially sanitised jail away from regular prisoners with only three convicts as his companions.

A senior official privy to the development after Gurmeet was put in jail told TOI that the first challenge was to keep media at bay that was hankering for updates on the time being spent by the convict inside the jail. “The 3-km radius of jail was sanitised and journalists’ entry was barred for bringing the normalcy in the situation as security had been put on high alert for many days.”

Since Gurmeet’s imprisonment, barring once when he was being handed over to

jail officials, the dera head’s adopted daughter Honeypreet never came to visit him, but his family members have made it a point to come meet him once a week.

Every week, he gives his dirty clothes to his kin and gets fresh washed ‘kurta pyajama’ from them without fail.

Initially, it was a challenge for him to bear the heat and loneliness of the dark jail cell and he often complained of health problem, but things gradually turned normal after a panel of doctors permitted him the use of air cooler to cope up with the unbearable heat on health grounds.

Gurmeet managed to shed 15 kg while working on jail premises. When he came here, he weighed 105kg, but he kept himself busy in growing vegetables like potato, bottle gourd and tomato, which were consumed in the jail mess, and after two years he was 90kg.

As per the jail manual, Gurmeet comes under unskilled category of prisoners so he was given the task of labour for which he is entitled Rs40 per day against his labour. The entire money of little more than Rs 18,000 has been transferred into his account like other prisoners.

“Against our assessment, Gurmeet has not shown any VIP attitude before the jail officials or asked for some extra favour in the last two years, except for some tea or walk in the green corridors of the jail,” said a security official deployed inside the jail.

“He keeps his head low and hands folded and greet anyone whom he get to make eye-contact with ‘Ram Ram’ and abides by the law like any disciplined prisoner.”

A jail inmate said the restriction on prisoners were raised multiple-times in the last two years after Gurmeet was sent here, otherwise they had some extra privileges to roam inside jail in the daytime, but now roaming inside the jail was permitted in morning and evening only.