Shetye beaten over broken eggs: Inmate

Mumbai: A jail inmate Tuesday testified before the court that the Byculla jail staff alleg-edly assaulted Manjula Shetye for giving broken eggs to inmates who were informers of jail staff.

The witness Harshada Bendre, Tuesday told the court that on the day the incident took place, warden Shetye had distributed eggs to prisoners but two inmates, who were informers of jail staff, got broken boiled eggs and they complained to one of the jail officials about the same. Following this, the jail authorities assaulted Shetye.

Bendre also told the court that the inmates were terrorised by Manisha Pokharkar who took over charge as jail superintendent of Byculla prison in January 2017, and this incident took place on June 23, 2017. According to her, the prisoners feared Pokharkar, which is why nobody dared to help Shetye when jail officers threatened to beat whoever helped in the same way as she was beaten. The court will continue recording Bendre’s statement on May 9.

It may be recalled that all the six accused had approached the Bombay high court, seeking bail on grounds that the trial in the case was going very slow. The applicants were behind bars since two years but till now, only two witnesses had been examined. The applicants’ lawyers had contended that with such a pace, the trail would take a long time to conclude and the accused could not be put behind bars forever. The charge sheet had been filed and probe was over so there was no possibility of tampering with evidence and hence, they should be granted bail.

The HC, however, told them to withdraw the applications as it would direct the trial court to expedite court proceedings by conducting a day-to-day trial. However, the lawyers for the accused requested the court to keep the applications pending and they would observe the progress of the case till further hearing and would inform the court if the progress was not satisfactory.

On June 24, 2017 Shetye, a convict in a murder case and warden of Byculla Woman Prison, was allegedly beaten to death by six women jail staff.