HIV+ve Prisoner who cried for treatment is dead

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HIV+ve prisoner who cried for treatment is dead

Mumbai: A 30-year-old prisoner, whose petition in the Bombay high court had

highlighted the lack of medical treatment for HIV-positive inmates in

Maharashtra's jails, has died of Aids at Pune's Yerwada prison.

His application had prompted the HC to set up a committee to look into the lack

of medical facilities for HIV-positive prisoners.

And, on Monday, when the petitioner's lawyer Rajesh Bindra told the court that

his client (name withheld) had died, the HC set up another committee to look

into why HIV-positive prisoners were dying in jails. The committee, to be headed

by inspector-general of prisons, has to submit its report in two weeks.

Bindra had earlier argued in court that as many as 32 HIV-positive inmates had

died in the Yerwada jail between 2001 and 2006. His client, sentenced to life,

died in March and another HIV-positive prisoner died in April, he said.

Bindra's client had alleged that jail officials were flouting National Aids

Control Organisation (Naco) guidelines on taking HIV-positive prisoners to

Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres on a timely basis.

The petition said that denial of treatment to prisoners suffering from

life-threatening conditions, like being HIV-positive, was a violation of their

fundamental rights. Bindra had sought his client's release on bail to enable him

to get proper treatment. While the HC took up the petition on lack of treatment

for HIV-positives, it kept the bail application pending.

In January, the HC had directed the Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society to

conduct a voluntary HIV-testing programme in four jails across the state.

Earlier, the HC had sought the assistance of lawyers Yug Chowdhary and Anand

Grover in improving facilities in jails for HIV-positive prisoners. They had

suggested that if the number of HIV prisoners was high then authorities could

consider having ART centres within prisons. Chowdhary said on Monday that

despite recommendations, sanctioned posts of medical officers in jails were not

being filled up.

Last July, the Nagpur bench of the HC had said that prison authorities should

consider putting all undertrials and convicts through an HIV test. This was in

response to a letter by a rape convict who alleged that he became HIV-positive

during his stay in jail as the " barber in the jail shaves several inmates with

the same blade " .

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