Jailed ex-Don Arun Gawli tops Gandhi Awareness Exam

Incarcerated erstwhile underworld don Arun Gulab Ahir alias Arun Gawli has taken to “Gandhigiri” of a different kind — by topping the Gandhi awareness examinations conducted for prisoners held at Nagpur Central Prison where he is serving a life sentence. Confirming that Gawli had topped the 2017 Gandhi awareness examination –certificates were distributed among prison inmates on Friday last, Trustee of Sahyog Trust Ravindra Bhusari told “The Pioneer” on Monday evening: “Yes. It is true that Gawli wrote 74 correct answers out of the 80 in the question paper in the Gandhi awareness examination”. “We appreciate that Gawli has made efforts to learn about the Gandhian way of life,” Bhusari said.   

Bhusari said that as many as 160 prisoners – including 12 convicts on the death row and several of them serving life sentences – had voluntarily appeared for the Gandhi awareness examinations held on October 1, 2017. “Though we had held the examination more than eight months and we were to have declared the results in January this year, we distributed the certificates to the passing students at a function held within the Nagpur prison on August 10,” Bhusari said. According to Bhusari, Gawkli had not initially registered himself for the examination. “It was only after Gawli happened to go through the advance study material and other literature sent from the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal (BSM), Mumbai, to all the jail inmates appearing for the examination that he evinced interest in appearing for the examinations,” Bhusari said.

After the authorities allowed him to appear for the examination,  Gawli sat for the examination and came up with 74 correct answers out of the total 80 questions during an hour-long exam.  

The Sahyog Trust, owing affiliation to the BSM, Mumbai, has been conducting the Gandhi awareness examinations for inmates in jails across Maharashtra for  the past eleven years.

It may be recalled that on August 31,2012,  Gawli and ten others were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in the murder of Shiv Sena corporator Kamalakar Jamsandekar in March 2007.

On April 29, 2008, the Mumbai crime branch police arrested Gawli and 15 others behind the crime under the MCOCA.

Gawli, who was a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly between 2004 and 2009, has since been behind the bars.

Gawli, who enjoyed considerable clout in the Mumbai underworld in the late eighties and early nineties, sought to reform himself by taking to politics in the nineties. As a first step, Gawli set up a political outfit Akhila Bharatiya Sena (ABS), which he tried in vain to project it as a parallel outfit to the Shiv Sena.  Gawli floated ABS in 1997,  when the Sena-BJP alliance was ruling the state.

Incidentally, Gawli’s wife Asha also served as a legislator, while his daughter is a municipal corporator in BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation.