Feather mattress to hard prison floor Reddy queues up for dal, rice

Hyderabad, Sept. 6: For someone used to sleeping on a bed of feathers, a thin cotton mattress must have been hard to lie on.

Even the two blankets that came with the mattress wouldn’t have helped.

But then, that wasn’t the only change mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy had to reconcile to after his arrest yesterday.

Sent to jail custody for 14 days on charges of illegal iron-ore mining and forest encroachment in Andhra Pradesh, the former Karnataka minister slept on the floor like an ordinary prisoner, shared a common toilet and ate in the common dining room, sitting on iron or stone slabs.

Back home in Bellary, Janardhana’s dining room has marble tables, while the scent of sandalwood wafts through air conditioners. “The court order directed us to treat him and his accomplice like any other undertrial and did not specify any special treatment,” said an official of Chanchalguda jail.

The BJP lawmaker was picked up yesterday by the CBI from his home in Bellary. One of the three Reddy brothers who rule the mining scene in Bellary, Janardhana had earlier been indicted by the Karnataka Lokayukta in the mining scam that unseated then chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa.

Keeping him company in Chanchalguda jail is B.V. Srinivas Reddy, managing director of Janardhana’s Obulapuram Mining Corporation, who too was arrested from Bellary and driven to Hyderabad.

Jail superintendent Keshav Naidu said the two spent the night in the barracks of the reception block.

While his team of advocates explored all legal avenues to get him bail, Janardhana stood in queue along with fellow undertrials with his aluminium plate and glass last night for his quota of rice, dal and vegetable curry and had to wash his plate after dinner.

For breakfast, it was khichdi — made in jail, not the stuff brought in from a popular vegetable joint that he is used to.

If his stay in the undertrials’ barracks continues without any special privileges for being a politician, Janardhana has to wash his clothes and sweep the surroundings as well, according to jail norms.

“However, the undertrials will be allowed to wear civilian dress till their trial period enlarges over a month when they will have to wear jail uniform,” a jail official said.

Unless their lawyers seek and get special-class prisoner status for them, Janardhana and Srinivas will have to share the barracks with other petty offenders.

But they can at least claim to be in famous company.

The jail now hosts tainted Satyam computer chief B. Ramalinga Raju. Maoist leader Khobad Ghandy is also in the same jail now but on transit halt.

The prison had been in the news in 2007, too, when Bollywood actress Monica Bedi was jailed here for several months.

Such trivia may not be on top of Janardhana’s mind now. But at least, they can help keep him from thinking of the feather mattress back home.