Gawli was among 160 inmates who had appeared for the exam. (Express archive photo by Manoj Patil)
Gangster convict Arun Gawli, lodged in the Central Jail here, has topped a Gandhian thought exam organised by Pune-based NGO Sahyog Trust. Gawli was awarded a prize and a certificate in his Anda cell on August 10. Sarvoday Mandal of Mumbai and Sarvoday Ashram of Nagpur also collaborated with the NGO in organising the exam.
“He scored 74 out of 80 to emerge topper,” said Ravindra Bhusari, Sahyog trustee said. Gawli was among 160 inmates who had appeared for the exam. “It was an open book exam, where examinees could write answers from the book,” Bhusari said. All questions are objective types with each carrying one mark, according to Bhusari.
The trust had been conducting the exam on Gandhian thoughts for jail inmates since 2007. “The idea is to bring about internal transformation in the inmates,” Bhusari said.
Earlier, the organisers were holding classes for the inmates on the subject but a couple of years ago, a scandal of inmates using mobile phones had rocked the jail, leading to curbs on entry to outsiders. “So, we had to discontinue the classes,” Bhusari said, adding, “but we provide the study material and stationary to them.”
In 2015, a similar exam was organised for the commercial sex workers in the Ganga-Jamuna locality of the city. “It was a very good experience. Over 40 women had passed the exam and had come out of addiction of one kind or the other,” Bhusari said.