105-year-old prisoner’s wife in Gorakhpur seeks his release

Sunra Devi is 90 and bedridden due to asthma and cardio-vascular diseases but spends all her time in prayer.

Sunra Devi is 90 and bedridden due to asthma and cardio-vascular diseases but spends all her time in prayer.

Sunra Devi is 90 and bedridden due to asthma and cardio-vascular diseases but spends all her time in prayer.(HT Photo)

She, however, isn’t worshipping the gods for her own health. Her last wish is to not let her 105-year-old husband, Chauthi Yadav, die in prison.

Chauthi is Uttar Pradesh’s oldest prisoner, currently behind bars serving a life term in Varanasi central jail after being convicted for murder in 2004 – when he was 94 years old.

Sunra Devi hasn’t seen him for the last 12 years.

“I want to see my husband released from jail. I am not able to see or hear properly. I request the government to set him free on humanitarian grounds,” she says.

Chauthi, a resident a resident of Malaon Village in the Belipar area, hit the headlines in 2010 when the Varanasi jail administration made him the chief guest on Independence Day. (HT Photo)

But with little indication of his release, three generations of the family are now running from pillar to post to fulfill Sunra Devi’s last wish.

His family has already appealed to President Pranab Mukharjee, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, governor Ram Naik and minster of jail Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, seeking his release on humanitarian grounds.

“My aunt wants to meet her husband before dying. Since she is bed-ridden she has not been able to visit him in jail. The government must take immediate steps to release him on humanitarian grounds,” said their nephew Gautam Yadav.