Assam woman fights for father-in-law ‘forgotten’ in jail for five years

GUWAHATI

The 14-year life term for Gouranga Sabar, convicted of murder in December 2004, was to have been over in 2018.

He appears to have been forgotten even after the passage of five years from the time he became eligible for remission of sentence, his daughter-in-law Bhumika Sabar of Sachinpur Basti in southern Assam’s Cachar district said.

“I do not know much about legal or official procedures but I have come to know that the release of my father-in-law has been held up for five years because the Silchar Central Jail authorities have not received a formal document from the office of the Cachar District Commissioner,” she said on Sunday.

Dharmananda Deb, a Silchar-based lawyer has stepped in to fight for Sabar’s release according to a government memorandum of October 6, 2015, allowing remission for life convicts upon the receipt of a conduct report from the authorities concerned.

In a July 6 letter to Assam’s Chief Secretary Ravi Kota on behalf of Ms. Sabar, Mr. Deb pointed out that her father-in-law’s term in jail exceeded the 14-year threshold stipulated by the State government for the consideration of remission.

He said the jail authorities received the mandatory conduct report from Cachar district’s Superintendent of Police in November 2020 but have been unable to process Sabar’s release as a similar report has been pending from the District Commissioner’s office.

The Superintendent of the Silchar Central Jail sent reminders to the District Commissioner’s office at least thrice between August 2020 and June 2024.

“Despite several communications and reminders to the District Commissioner’s office, there has been no progress in obtaining the conduct report,” Mr. Deb wrote, seeking the Chief Secretary’s intervention to enable Sabar to walk free.