Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju had an unusual request for the Cherlapalli central prison authorities on Friday.
“Shift us to the barracks where there is no television set,“ they pleaded. Clearly, the Raju brothers did not want to be exposed to any news and discussions on TV pertaining to them.
This posed a bit of a problem for the jail authorities because all barracks have TV sets. But in two barracks, the TV sets have gone for repairs and it is here that the Qaidi No 4148 ( Ramalinga Raju) and Qaidi No 4147 ( Rama Raju) were lodged.
The other partners in the crime were shifted to different barracks in ent barracks in the Godavari block of the jail after spending the night in Manasa Sarovar block along with the two brothers.
Ramalinga Raju is now sharing barrack space with 17 other prisoners who have been convicted in family or dowryrelated cases. There are some convicted for minor crime but there are no hardcore criminals.
On Friday morning, after a walk outside the prison barrack when it was opened, Ramalinga Raju, for most part of the day, was engrossed in reading the CBI documents related to his case. Apart from that spiral-bound case book, Ramalinga Raju also got some other books along with him to the jail. The 10 convicts in the Satyam case kept in separate barracks could meet during the day when the barracks were opened.
A health check-up is conducted for every prisoner at the time of admission into the jail. Strangely, Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju declared that they had no health issues. The other eight, however, got their blood pressure checked by the prison doctor as part of a general health check-up.
As an undertrial, Ramalinga Raju had spent several months in the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences at Punjagutta for his heart ailment and treatment for Hepatitis C. He had also secured a special category status then in the Chanchalguda jail through a court order but, in contrast, his life in the Cherlapalli jail as an ordinary prisoner is unlikely to be as comfortable. Thursday night was not without worries for the founder of Satyam Computers with a swarm of mosquitoes in the barracks.
After changing into prison attire white shirt and trousers which is mandatory for convicts, Raju retired for the night to sleep on a durrie. Jail sources say that Ramalinga Raju lighted a mosquito coil to keep the mosquitoes at bay .
Though eight of the Satyam case convicts had `mulaqat' meeting their family on Friday, there were no visitors for Ramalinga Raju and his brother Rama Raju.
Like ordinary prisoners, the Raju brothers were served khichidi for breakfast, chapatirice, dal, rasam and papad for lunch and a similar dinner with a different vegetarian curry for the early dinner at 4 pm.
Source: TimesOfIndia
