Bhadrak (Orissa): All thanks to a prisoner charged with murder, a jailer's son has come out with shining colours in a state-level school examination in Orissa.
Chandrasekhar Panda, 39, is a prisoner in the sub-jail in the coastal district of Bhadrak since a court sentenced him to life imprisonment in a murder case of 1996.
Panda is a post-graduate in mathematics with an outstanding educational career, who went on to study despite being charged with the crime at an early age. He was also a tutor in Delhi for a while.
"Looking at his career I and my family decided to engage him as a tutor for my son," Dibakar Mallick, the jail superintendent, told IANS.
It was the beginning of a long association that paid immense dividends.
Panda taught Mallick's son Debasish almost every day in the jail premises, all for free. He was no doubt a good teacher.
When the High School Certificate Examination was held this year, the boy secured the fifth position in the whole of Orissa.
The jubilant jailor is full of praise for the murder convict.
"He appears to be innocent. But what can we do for him?" asked Mallick. "I have decided to seek permission from top officials to help him open a coaching center inside the jail so that others can benefit from his talent."
"Chandra Sekhar Sir has not only vast knowledge of mathematics and physics but his teaching methods are unique and remarkable," Debasish said.
A resident of Chasakhand village in the same district, Chandra Sekhar describes himself as an innocent man who has been wrongly convicted.
"I am among those who saw their dream shattered before their eyes," he said. "One day in December 1988 I was to leave for my college but heard that someone had been killed in our village," he recalled.
"I returned to see the victim. That time I was studying in Class 12 in Bhadrak. The police arrested me along with some others in April 1989 without verifying the facts."
A lower court convicted him in 1996. He appealed in the high court, but it upheld the earlier judgment. He moved the Supreme Court, which too agreed in 2004 with the earlier rulings.
In between, he managed to pursue his studies. Later, he took to teaching and, while on bail, taught at a private tutorial in New Delhi.
"I am the victim of a system that punishes innocents," he alleged. "I couldn't prove my innocence as we had no money to appoint a good lawyer."
Jail officials have engaged him to work as an office assistant in the jail.
He is also teaching at least 50 other prisoners who are preparing for degree and undergraduate examinations and three other children of the jail staff.
"I also have the potential to teach engineering and medical entrance students," claims the man.
Comments
0 comment