Bengaluru: AIADMK’s jailed leader V.K. Sasikala was on Friday granted five-day parole to meet her ailing husband M. Natarajan in Chennai. She has been directed to keep away from all political activity during the parole period.
Sasikala, 60, left for Chennai in a private car along with her nephew and sidelined AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dinakaran from the jail at Parapanna Agrahara on the city’s southern outskirts.
“She (Sasikala) has been given parole for five days till October 11 to meet her ailing husband in the hospital in Chennai,” Bengaluru Central Jail Superintendent G. Somashekar told IANS.
“She has to return to the prison by October 12 evening,” he added.
Though Sasikala applied for 15 days parole on Wednesday, the prison authority permitted her to be out of jail for only five days with conditions.
“Sasikala has been directed to limit her visit to Chennai. She has also been instructed to desist from any political activity during the parole period,” Somashekar said.
She is allowed to meet her relatives but not politicians or her party leaders and lawmakers. She is also prevented from talking to media, he added.
Sasikala is serving a four-year sentence in the central prison on the city’s outskirts since February 15 after the Supreme Court on February 14 upheld her conviction in a corruption case by a trial court in September 2015 here.
“We have considered her re-submitted application for parole with the required documents, including a letter from the Chennai local body, on her stay at Poes Garden in Chennai during the parole,” said Somashekar.
Natarajan, 74, had undergone liver and kidney transplant at a private hospital in Chennai on Wednesday.
AIADMK’s Karnataka unit in-charge Va Pugazhendi told IANS that party’s Rajya Sabha lawmaker N. Krishnan gave an undertaking on Sasikala’s behalf and deposited Rs1,000 with the jail as a surety for her parole.
Tamil Nadu Police, which have given no-objection certificate for Sasikala’s visit to Chennai, will look after her security during the parole.
Sasikala’s co-convicts Elavarasi (sister in-law) and V.N. Sudhakaran (nephew) are also serving the sentence concurrently in the same jail after they were held guilty in the Rs64-crore disproportionate assets case of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.
Jayalalithaa, who was also convicted in the 19-year-old graft case, passed away at a private hospital in Chennai on December 5, 2016.
— IANS
