Warden, HIV+ prisoners tortured me: woman inmate

A Tihar Jail’s woman prisoner, facing trial in cases of cheating and forgery, has accused the warden of torturing her for money with the help of HIV-positive women inmates.

A Tihar Jail’s woman prisoner, facing trial in cases of cheating and forgery, has accused the warden of torturing her for money with the help of HIV-positive women inmates.

HT Image

In a plea to a Delhi court, Honey Sharma, lodged in Jail 6 of Tihar, has also apprehended that she might contract AIDS.

Lodged in jail for over three months now and facing trial in 11 cases, Sharma, in her plea to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav, alleged that she was being tortured by the head warden and warden for money. Her two-year-old daughter also lives with her in the jail.

She told the court that the wardens “beat me up badly and got the AIDS patient to scratch me with her nails.” She alleged that she was beaten up for an hour before the deputy superintendent and the jail staff who remained mute spectators.

She also alleged that her daughter was also manhandled by the warden and her pleas for being taken to the hospital were dismissed.

Sharma, along with her husband Vipin Sharma and five others — Sachin Sharma, Harshad Alam, Bhupender, Aman Alam — have been accused of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and under the Passport Act for running a fake passport racket in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. They are involved in over 30 such cases.

Sharma has pleaded that she should not be sent back to jail as she fears torture and should instead be allowed to visit a doctor as she fears having contracted AIDS. The court has called for comments from the jail authorities.