A superbrat son of a rich Congress politician, Manu Sharma, shot dead a model, Jessica Lal, in a night club in Delhi in 1999. And worse, he tried to cover up the murder by burning the corpse in a tandoor. This case shocked the nation. Despite the powerful father, an ex-union minister, doing his best to tamper with the witness and evidence, his son was finally convicted of homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment.
You would have thought, justice has been done. No way!!. You have not reckoned without his powerful family and a very pliant Congress Government in Delhi and in the Centre. The family has a legacy of being dealers and fixers in politics. As this shows. They pulled their strings to get him parole for doing the final rituals of his departed grandmother, look after his ageing mother (it is another fact that she is chic, hale and healthy campaigning for Congress in Haryana and conducting a press conference on the eve of a womens cricket match in Chandigarh) and to look after his business interests (why we should give parole to a rich brat of a murderer who killed in cold blood to look after his business interests baffles me).
Parole was approved against the recommendation of the Delhi Police, as you can see here. This same Delhi Government that is dragging its feet for 4 years now to give a recommendation on the clemency petition of Afzal Guru, moved with lightning speed and Manu Sharma was given a parole for one whole month, which was later extended by one more month. For 2 months, a hard core murderer was out on the streets with no police supervision. Forget 2 months, even one week parole is not give to life convicts even to atted family weddings. The reason why they are give life improsemet is that they should suffer the loss of basic things like attending weddings and business meetings or being with near and dear, which they have denied to their victim by killing them.
Now, the parole rules clearly states that Manu Sharma has to be confined to his house in Chandigarh. What does he do? He drives down to Delhi, and at 2 am walks into a bar, picks up a fight with another drinker, who unfortunately was a senior police officers son. This became a big scandal, and Manu Sharma was advised by his coterie to return to Jail on his own to avoid punishment.
The question here is, will a common man, in similar circumstances get these same privileges? No way. So , are we in a banana republic where we have one set of law for the rich and another for the poor. It appears so. Shame on us.
