Anand Mohan, a politician who used to be a gangster, has been released from jail in Bihar, India. He had been serving a life sentence for killing a civil servant named G Krishnaiah 30 years ago. This led to protests from the family and friends of the murdered man. Mohan was an MP before he was found guilty in 2007. His supporters think that he was wrongly accused of the murder. They had planned to celebrate his release, but it happened in a way that prevented any big gatherings.
Krishnaiah was a district magistrate from Telangana and belonged to a Scheduled Caste. He was beaten to death by a mob in 1994 when his car tried to pass a funeral procession in Muzaffarpur district. Mohan was leading the procession at the time. He was an MLA from Mahishi and was mourning the death of his friend Chhotan Shukla, who had been killed before he could enter politics.
Mohan was on a list of more than 20 prisoners who were ordered to be released because they had already spent over 14 years behind bars. The state Law department issued a notification earlier this week. This followed an amendment to the Bihar Prison Manual on April 10 by the Nitish Kumar government. This change meant that those who had killed civil servants on duty could be released early.
Mohan’s wife, Lovely Anand, is also a former MP. She was relieved that her husband had been released and thanked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. She claims that her husband is innocent and wasn’t even at the scene when the murder took place. She expressed sympathy for the family of the murdered man and said that if her husband had been there, he would have tried to save Krishnaiah, even if it meant risking his own life.
