Hakka noodles in prison for Chinese who landed in soup

PATNA: A Chinese man, the first foreign national to be arrested in dry Bihar for violation of prohibition law, follows a special prison-sponsored diet at Beur jail: hakka noodles and boiled vegetables.

Patna police had arrested Wu Tiandong, 34, an employee of a Chinese cellphone manufacturing firm, following the recovery of a sealed bottle of 180ml Nepalese liquor and an empty India-made foreign liquor (IMFL) from his residence under the Gardanibagh police station area on June 17.

“Tiandong’s visa, issued on December 22 last year, expired on June 21, four days after his arrest,” an officer said. His bail has already been rejected by a lower court in Patna and he might have to spend more weeks inside the jail.

A prison and correctional services officer said Tiandong is being provided with hakka noodles and boiled vegetables. “The reason for providing him food according to his wish is that he can’t eat spicy Indian food generally served in jail. Apart from noodles and boiled vegetables, he sometimes eats plain rice or bread,” he said.

Sources said one of his family members met him with an interpreter on a few occasions in the jail. “It was his interpreter who told us what kind of food Tiandong eats and how to cook them,” sources said, adding that Tiandong is kept in the vigilance ward which houses only those who are accused in graft cases and arrested by vigilance sleuths.

Sources said Tiandong is the first foreign national to be arrested in Bihar for violation of prohibition law and his arrest had become a serious issue between the Indian and Chinese authorities. An official from consulate-general of China in Kolkata, Wang Lifeng, had also met police officials in Patna.

The apartment from where Tiandong was arrested was used as guesthouse by the cellphone firm for its Chinese officials at the time and at least nine Chinese nationals were living there when Patna police conducted a raid. Police had seized another IMFL bottle from one of the flats and its resident, Wu Chuangyong Sichuan, is on the run.