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Three fellow jail inmates moved after Navjot Sidhu complains
The fellow barrack inmates allegedly used Navjot Sidhu’s cash card to buy ration for themselves from Patiala jail canteen
Former Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is serving a one-year jail term in a road rage case, reportedly accused his fellow barrack inmates of misusing his cash card, following which three of them have been shifted elsewhere in the Patiala prison.
Confirming that barracks of “some inmates” who were lodged with Sidhu have been changed, Patiala jail superintendent Manjit Singh refused to divulge any details while calling it a “minor issue”.
Even Punjab jail minister Harjot Singh Bains shared a tweet over the issue: “It is a four-day-old trivial issue. Every inmate is issued a card. Sidhu says an inmate had drawn ration on his card for himself.”
According to a jail official privy to the development, the cricketer-turned-politician had been sharing the barrack with five other inmates. As there are security concerns, he used to hand over his cash card to his fellow inmates to procure his special diet — recommended by a medical board — from the jail canteen, said the official.
After Sidhu found that the spending limit of his card was almost exhausted, he reportedly objected to it. Meanwhile, the prisoners alleged that Sidhu used harsh words against them, said the official. Following this, the jail administration immediately changed the barracks of three prisoners, leaving just two others with Sidhu in the barrack, he said.
Sidhu was moved to the Patiala Central Jail after he surrendered before a local court on May 20 to serve the one-year prison term handed out to him by the Supreme Court in a 1988 road rage case. The Congress leader was earlier let off in the case with a fine of meagre ₹1,000.
