Chandigarh: Former Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu surrendered before the Patiala court Friday afternoon a day after he was sentenced to a one-year jail term in the 34-year-old road rage case by the Supreme Court.
Sidhu who has his residence in Patiala reached the district court accompanied by some party leaders around 3 pm from where he was taken to the nearby government hospital for the medical check-up before taking him to the Patiala Central jail.
Even though Sidhu had reached his Patiala residence on Thursday night, he had sought more time from the Supreme Court to surrender saying he had some medical issues to settle. However, the apex court asked him to file a formal application before the chief justice’s court.
It may be recalled that the top court had on Thursday enhanced Sidhu's punishment to a year's rigorous imprisonment four years after it let him off with a fine of Rs 1,000 over the death of a 65-year-old man in a road rage case in 1988 after the victim’s family moved a plea against it.
Meanwhile, reacting to the imprisonment of Sidhu, the Punjab jail minister Harjot Singh Bains, said that his government had already ended the VIP culture in the jail as per which all inmates live in the same conditions and facilities. "It would be the same for Navjot Singh Sidhu or anyone else," he told the media.
According to jail manuals, the inmates’ day begins at 5.30 am; they go to work after breakfast at 8.30 am and are off their work allotted to them at 5.30 pm. They get back to their barracks by 7 pm after dinner. Sidhu would also have to abide by the jail dress code and don white clothes mandatory for convicts inside Punjab jails.
SWORN ENEMIES IN SAME JAIL
It may also be mentioned that Sidhu has been lodged in the same jail where his enemy number one Shiromani Akali leader Bikram Majithia is lodged facing trial in a drug case and it was Sidhu who was instrumental in booking Majithia in the said case ahead of February assembly polls. Even though the two fought each other in Amritsar (east) seat, both were trounced by the first-timer AAP candidate. However, the under-trials and convicts have their barracks in separate sections on the same prison campus. Here, while Majithia is an under-trial, Sidhu is a convict.
PUNJAB CONG BACKS SIDHU
Meanwhile, Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Partap Singh Bajwa on Friday took to Twitter in support of Sidhu. Warring, who succeeded Sidhu as the state Congress chief, said he stood by the senior colleague and his family. “With due respect for the verdict of the Supreme Court, I stand by my senior colleague @sherryontopp Ji and his family at this difficult hour,” he tweeted. Likewise, Bajwa also said the Punjab Congress would stand firmly behind Sidhu and his family.
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